الأضحى (Eid al-Ahda) by Sarah Mohammed

Eid Mubarak

The gentle blessing floats off our tongues like 

shallow breaths, as morning dew from the grass kisses our bare feet. 

We gather in unity; we are one on this holy morning.  

Umma starts the ترتيل‎ (Tarteel) that materializes into our faith. 

We rise together, voices mangled with accents, dressed with youth and age, we combine 

into the rich and powerful tajwid of worship. 

We are no longer reciting. Our hearts sing with love and devotion

to ourselves, each other and our beliefs, blending

into the burning drop of light rising slowly 

above us, streaks of deep color across delicate morning blue. 

The prayers end. We nourish ourselves with hand-cooked meals. 

We can taste them before bringing the food to our lips. 

A leaf rustles. No one dares disturb our sanctuary 

blessed by Mother Nature herself on our celebration, our Eid, but we were wrong,

A mob came in our place of worship and 

screamed slurs 

They waved their tattered cardboard signs in our faces

our clasped hands our beating hearts 

we looked at other faces they could wreck us 

it was our time to be united to be pure and true 

we are Americans anyway why should we “leave Americans alone” 

we were born in the valleys of this country in the patterns of practice Eid Mubarak 

The gentle blessing floats off our tongues like shallow breaths

as we huddle together in tightly packed rows against the sticky linoleum floors of my uncle’s apartment.

Sarah Fathima Mohammed is a Muslim-American emerging writer and high schooler from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Canvas Literary Journal, Rattle, Eunoia Review, Girls Right the World, and The Rising Phoenix Review. When she is not writing, she teaches English to homeless students living in transitional shelters, reads for Polyphony Lit, and enjoys archery. 

Originally published in Canvas Literary Journal