Farewell Rizana Nafeek

Last 2010, i wrote and posted the poem here for Rizana Nafeek. This poem is very special to me. Rizana Nafeek (born 1988) went to Saudi Arabia last May 4, 2005,at the age of 17, to work as a domestic worker in the hope that she can help her parents provide the needs of their family. She was brought in Saudi Arabia,by an illegal recruiter who falsified her age on her passport, to work for a typical Muslim Family with few wives and many children to take care of. When she was bottle-feeding, the baby choked the milk and died. She was sentenced to death by beheading on June 16, 2007. After battling the hardships as a prisoner for Unintentioanl Homicide, she was beheaded.

17 years of poverty with her family, 2 years on trial, 6 years sentenced, has now been beheaded. What a painful life you had lived Rizana. You will always be remembered as well the barbarity with which you were killed.

Today the sky cast
a different shade of blue
Dimness, daylight, doves and tears
tells me I must do something for you,
Rizana...

Precious Rizana,my fellow Overseas Contract Worker,
lend me your ear as I speak,
hear the words from my heart that cares
to share your unfathomable throes.

I care for you
and the cries of your heart,
your adolescent heart that never
fully experienced the freedom of a teenager
because of poverty, hunger...

You embraced the responsibility that somehow
belongs to your parents but I know,
I truly understand it all;
the pain behind the sentiments between cycle and role
of poverty...

Behind those bars,
inside those walls
I can see you;
A lone white dove
with fractured wings
that was never taught to sing
unjustly
sentenced to death…….
By the most barbaric means

How heartbreaking is that scene?
You left your home for your family
and there you lay with a cold blank stare
away, so, so far away from home,
inside that cold prison, wither
by the fear, sorrow, pains, longing
of a daughter to hug her mother
of a daughter to kiss his father
of a sister....
that will soon became part of the history?

As the air grew thin
with the smell of death and fear
I felt the freezing cold
rushing through my veins
upon holding the rugs and brooms
both arduous and distressing
as tears escape twin streams of my soul.

I saw the executioner on my pc screen,
the rituals,
the swords,

I heard and listened to his testimony
word by word
like cutting daggers pressed into my heart.

So is this how it’s going to end?
Rizana...

Visions of sky turned black
as the twilight came
and the concluding curtain fell
for you..
at a very young age,
a hero to her family,
to the OCW's...
is so unacceptable. cruel…

I will pray for you
Rizana....
I,Airyn.