The Asma Al-Husna, (God's beautiful names) have been fascinating to me since I first learned of them many, many years ago.


           الضار           Ad-Darr is one of Allah's ninety-nine names. It is the 91st name on the list of  99. Its meaning is ominous, overwhelming, and oddly comforting. Its exact meaning is hard to translate, as are many of the Asma Al-Husna, but there are many translations to choose from. Here are two:

• The One who makes harm reach to whomever He willed and benefit to whomever He willed
• The Distressor, The Harmer, The Afflictor

Okay, so when I reflected on the meaning of this name, Ad-Darr-The Distressor, The Harmer, The Afflictor, in relation to God, and me, and life, and everyone around me in the entire world, my resulting mood was both depressed and liberated. Pretty much the same feeling that resulted after I wrote my first sestina. I had been trying to write a sestina for years without success (just kept trashing all my drafts because they weren't right), but finally wrote this one after my mother suffered a severe, disabling stroke.

 Blood and Curses                                                                                 

You are sleeping when they call with news.

First, you can’t breathe, Mom had a stroke.

No clots there, just a river of blood.

Now surgeons are working their magic.

This is all they say. You pray and curse

in the same breath. Pack your bags for home.

Six hundred fifty seven miles to home.

You will arrive at midnight, dreading news.

This ride is torture, even the kids curse,

but you don’t admonish, instead you stroke

your husband’s arm, pray for healing magic,

knowing the damage of brain soaked in blood.

Mothers and daughters share more than blood.

This trip from present home to past home

is like a backwards dream. This black magic

voodoo on mother’s brain is grave news.

Like an evil lightning strike, this stroke

illuminates our pain, our fear, our curse.

You see her, in ICU, pray, then curse

the God who kills brain cells with blood.

We pray to and hate the God who invented strokes

and uses tragedies to bring us home.

The doctors are cordial bearing their news.

It will take a miracle or white magic

to make her whole again. Prayers are magic.

You are begging an absent God for curse

removal, for blood removal, for news

of CAT scans that show less blood

than before. It’s a long road home

for this survivor of red stroke.

First, Dad, now Mom’s turn with stroke.

It is the worst twin fate, neither magic

nor prayers repelled it from your home.

You can’t be convinced it’s not a curse.

Blood that clots, blood that flows, blood

that travels through phones bearing news.

Time for stroke, taunts the old curse.

No use in magic, it doesn’t work on blood.

If mom ever makes it home, it will still be bad news.