Kay Hassan
Darker than the dead of the night
Onyx like - the stone of the height.
Silhouetted against the summer light
shoulder to shoulder, raced the wind
And in the memories of the highlanders,
No one had seen braver than her
As thunders are to clouds
-Black and her holy knight,
Were to the darkness of the height .
Despite the cracks of those cruel demons
Who acted akin to the tail wagging the dog
Black was forever on the move,
Came and went with the brightest moon
And rived the light like a divine harpoon
***
Stately, someday, Black’s lord,
Died with A LITTLE VERBAL Will:
‘ Wake on my grave for three nights, boys.’
Fatima , the maid who cared for Black.,
Was to her a twin to twin,
Startled in the middle of her dream,
When the smokes of the watch-fire
stretched away like a steady scream
Fatima was woken up , and ran out
Dazzled though by a siren like shout.,
Cried in her native language ;
ANFAL HAT , ANFAL*…
***
Fatima knew the word in a religion must
Is a metaphor for every kind of rape.
‘Alas,’ gasped she and shouted..
‘ Black…Black …Black,
My dearest sister, Black .”
***
Fatima the damsel of the old house,
climbed the hill of the Gottesacker,
Where through the villagers fled,
And the Height’s fighters - in dread ,
Had given the ground very early ,
Escaped the battle. (Eagle like surely.)
***
Fatima knew none of her lord’s boys
Would be giving up his joys
And waking on his father’s shrine
But for her duties ,(Fatima) was certain
Black would …
Without dropping to her a line ….
***
She hugged her in a great fear,
“ Sister,“ yelled she. “Lets run, dear .”
Black nodded with tearing eyes,
Through a bunch of whinnies and neighs
Though she did not speak horses’ language,
In what her sister had just uttered,
Fatima perceived , the horse’s courage
Was the ultimate honor of the black steed
“Regret me not if I forced you to decline ‘
‘Flee you won’t make a good concubine,’
“ Black !” Fatima too, cried .
” For God‘s sake, sister, flee.”
***
Black forgot how to neigh,
Denying , to be an easy prey
Plied her vocal cords to play
A big melody for her last day
“ Oh beautiful daughters of Highland,
Remember my gallops, and sleight of hand
Softness, agility and wind like beauty
And all things of my foremost - duty .’
I won’t flee this battlefield , girls ,
Even if was not through my entire course,
A descendant of any great horse.”
***
We left our lands for the devils,
Who flattened houses, men and fields
To sing “We are storms we are lions.’
And then, the time passed so slowly,
That the snow covered the whole heights,
Before even hit the first winter’s nights
But, nevertheless, no one since the day,.
Saw Fatima sewing behind the window
Or Black galloping in the meadow.
*****
***
*.
Long Version
Black and Fatima
Darker than the dead of the night,
Onyx-like—the stone of the height.
Silhouetted against the summer light,
Shoulder to shoulder, raced the wind.
And in the memories of the highlanders,
No one had seen braver than her.
As thunders are to clouds—
Black and her holy knight,
Were to the darkness of the height.
For in those days, when God’s name echoed
From every stone and every prayer,
It was said the Almighty Himself
Had shaped Black not by the power of “Be, and it is,”
But with His own hand—
As He once formed man from the dust,
So too did He sculpt the noble steed,
Imbuing her with strength, grace, and spirit
That no mere word could bestow.
Her mane was woven with the night’s own silk,
Her courage poured from the wellspring of the Creator’s heart.
In every hoofbeat, the echo of divine intention;
In every breath, the memory of God’s touch.
Thus did Black stand—
Not only as a creature of legend,
But as a living testament to the Lord’s craftsmanship,
A guardian shaped by sacred hands
To keep vigil over the pious and the beloved,
Defiant against the diva and the darkness
That haunted the heights of our home.
Despite the cracks of the cruel demons
Who acted akin to the tail wagging the dog,
Black was forever on the move,
Her hooves drumming defiance through the valley’s hush.
She came and went with the brightest moon,
A shadow gliding swift over trembling fields,
And rived the darkness with a harpoon of light—
Not merely fleeing, but cleaving a path
Through every snare the night had set.
No spell or malice could slow her stride,
For in her heart burned a courage
That no demon’s laughter could ever quench.
She was the answer to every whispered prayer
That rose from our frightened homes at dusk—
A force that split the gloom,
Unwavering, relentless,
A living promise that the shadows
Would never claim the last word
While she still ran beneath God’s watching sky
***
Stately, someday, Black’s lord
Died, leaving only a little verbal will:
“Wake on my grave for three nights, boys.”
Such was the custom, believed to shield
The bones of the pious from the diva’s wrath—
A tradition older than memory,
Rooted deeper than the stones of our village.
Fatima, the maid who cared for Black,
Was to her a twin—soul to soul,
Bound by silent understanding,
By the hush of stables and the rhythm of gentle hands.
But on that night, when the world was torn open,
Fatima was startled awake in the middle of her dream,
As the smoke of the watch-fire
Stretched away like a steady scream,
A warning unraveling across the sky.
She ran out, heart pounding,
Dazzled and blinded by a siren’s cry—
A sound that was neither mortal nor divine,
But something beyond even God’s ordinary power,
As if the heavens themselves recoiled
From what was to come.
In her native tongue she cried,
“ANFAL HAT, ANFAL…”
A word that, in her faith,
Was a shadow cast by men,
A metaphor for every kind of rape,
Every desecration that language cannot hold.
“Alas,” she gasped, her voice breaking,
“Black… Black… Black,
My dearest sister, Black.”
And in that cry, the world seemed to pause—
As if even the angels held their breath,
Unable to intervene
In the sorrow that now swept the heights.
***
Fatima, the damsel of the old house,
Climbed the haunted hill of the Gottesacker,
Her steps steady, heart pounding beneath the weight of memory.
Around her, the path was scarred by hurried footprints—
The villagers had fled through the night,
Their shadows swallowed by fear and the unknown.
The fighters of the Height,
Usually fierce as mountain storms,
Had yielded the ground early,
Their pride and valor scattered to the winds,
Escaping the battle—eagle-like, surely—
Their retreat swift, silent, and sorrowful.
Yet Fatima pressed upward,
Her resolve shining in the dusk,
A beacon against the trembling dark.
She moved with purpose,
Her every breath a silent prayer,
Her every step echoing with the memory of hoofbeats—
For she climbed not only for virginity alone,
But for the bond that tied her to Black,
And for all the stories that would be lost
If she did not face the gathering night.
***
Fatima knew, with a sorrow that settled deep in her bones,
That none of her lord’s sons would come—
Not one would abandon the fleeting joys of safety and shelter,
Not one would brave the haunted night
To keep vigil on their father’s grave,
As tradition and honor demanded.
The world had changed overnight;
The old customs, once as solid as the stones beneath their feet,
Had been scattered by fear and the thunder of distant guns.
The sons, once proud as lions,
Were now shadows in exile,
Their absence a wound that bled into the heart of the house.
But Fatima, bound by a duty older than blood,
Felt the weight of memory and promise settle on her shoulders.
She knew, with a certainty that needed no words,
That Black—the family’s midnight guardian—
Would not forsake the vigil,
Would not abandon the resting place of the one who had loved her.
No whispered message, no hurried farewell,
No note left behind in the hush of the stable—
Yet Fatima understood:
Black would be there, drawn by loyalty deeper than command,
By a devotion that did not falter in the face of darkness or dread.
It was a silent pact,
Forged in the quiet hours of feeding and care,
In the gentle brush of hand against mane,
In the unspoken language of trust
That needed no witness but God.
And so, as the village emptied and the world was undone,
Fatima felt the pull of that sacred bond—
A promise kept not by men,
But by her soul who crafted Black,
Who would stand watch when all others had fled,
A sentinel beneath the indifferent stars,
Keeping faith with the dead and the living alike.
***
The Ultimate Farewell
In the trembling half-light,
Fatima threw her arms around Black’s strong neck,
Clutching her as one clings to a memory
On the edge of being erased.
Her breath came in ragged sobs,
Her heart pounding a frantic plea
Against the silence of the hills.
“Pray you, sister,” she cried, her voice splintered with fear,
“Let’s run, dear, let’s run—
Before the world swallows us whole,
Before the soldiers and their shadows
Find us in this last refuge of night.”
She pressed her cheek to Black’s warm flank,
Tasting the salt of her own tears,
Hoping, for a moment,
That love might be enough to save them both.
Black, the midnight guardian,
Met Fatima’s gaze with eyes shining,
Wet with a sorrow that words could never hold.
She nodded, a gesture almost human,
Her body trembling with the storm inside her—
A chorus of whinnies and desperate neighs
Rising from her throat,
A music of terror and longing
That echoed across the empty fields.
Though Fatima had never spoken the language of horses,
She understood, in that shattering moment,
Everything her sister wished to say.
In the flicker of Black’s ears,
In the defiant lift of her head,
Fatima saw a courage
That burned brighter than the watch-fires,
A loyalty that would not yield
Even as the world collapsed.
“Regret me not if I force you to decline,”
Fatima whispered, her voice breaking,
“Flee—you won’t make a good concubine.
You are meant for the wind,
For the freedom of the hills,
Not for the chains of men who know only how to destroy.”
Her words hung in the air,
Heavy as a curse,
Heavy as the fate that had befallen them.
“Black!” she cried, her voice rising in anguish,
“For God’s sake, sister, flee!”
But Black stood her ground,
Hooves planted in the earth as if rooted by the hand of God Himself,
Refusing to abandon the place of memory,
The grave of her master,
The promise she had made in silence.
In that moment, time seemed to fracture—
The world shrinking to the space between girl and horse,
Between hope and despair.
Fatima’s hands shook as she pressed her face
Into Black’s mane, inhaling the scent of grass and sweat,
Of all the lost days of childhood,
Of every morning spent in the stable,
Of every evening spent beneath the stars.
The night pressed in, thick with the threat of violence,
And Fatima knew, with a certainty that hollowed her soul,
That this was goodbye.
No words could bridge the chasm opening between them,
No prayer could undo the ruin that marched ever closer.
She clung to Black,
As if by holding on she could keep the world from ending,
As if love could be a shield against the coming storm.
But the world was already ending,
And the gods, if they watched, wept in silence.
The hills bore witness to the breaking of a bond
That had outlasted fear,
Outlasted even hope.
And as Fatima staggered back,
Her hands empty,
Her heart shattered,
Black lifted her head to the sky
And sang a melody of loss so pure,
So piercing,
That even the stars seemed to dim in mourning.
There, on the haunted hill,
With the darkness closing in,
Fatima and Black stood—
Sisters in spirit,
Divided by fate,
Bound forever by a love
Too fierce for this world to hold.
***
Black forgot how to neigh,
Refused to be an easy prey,
Her voice, once a gentle greeting at dawn,
Now rose with new purpose—
She plied her vocal cords to play
A melody vast as the valley,
A song spun for her last day beneath the sky.
It was not a cry of surrender,
But a hymn of defiance,
A music that soared above the ruined fields
And swept through the broken hearts of those who listened.
Her notes carried the memory of wild gallops,
Of moonlit races across the highland grass,
Of the sleight of hoof and sudden turn,
Of softness, agility, and wind-like beauty—
All the gifts bestowed by the hand of her Maker,
All the things she had cherished as her foremost duty.
“Oh, beautiful daughters of Highland,”
Her song seemed to call,
“Remember the thunder of my gallops,
The grace in my stride, the courage in my heart.
Remember how I danced with the wind,
How I bore my burdens with pride,
How I never bowed my head to fear.
Let my memory be a banner for your own wild spirits,
A reminder that dignity is not in blood or lineage,
But in the choice to stand,
To sing,
To face the darkness with eyes wide open.
I will not flee this battlefield, girls—
Not for fear, nor for the promise of another dawn.
Even if, through my entire course,
I was never counted among the descendants
Of any great horse,
Still, I will hold this ground,
And let my last song be a testament
That courage is its own inheritance.”
So Black’s voice rose,
A melody that lingered on the wind
Long after the world had fallen silent—
A final gift, a legacy,
For all who would remember.
***
We left our lands for the devils,
Who flattened houses, men, and fields—
Who came with fire and thunder,
Turning orchards to ashes and laughter to dust,
So they could sing, “We are storms, we are lions,”
Their voices echoing over the ruins
Where our stories once grew.
We left behind the scent of bread at dawn,
The hush of prayers beneath ancient roofs,
The warmth of hands that once built these homes,
And the graves of those who taught us to hope.
We left, and the world behind us collapsed
Into a silence so deep
That even the birds forgot their songs.
And then, time passed so slowly—
Each day stretching into a gray eternity,
The hours heavy as stones,
Until the snow covered the whole heights,
Blanketing the wounds of the earth
Before even the first winter’s nights had come.
The cold crept in, not just to the fields,
But into the bones of memory,
Freezing every echo of what was lost.
But, nevertheless, no one since that day
Saw Fatima sewing behind the window,
Her hands moving with patient grace
As the light faded from the hills.
No one heard her laughter drifting from the yard,
Or caught her silhouette against the evening fire.
No one saw Black galloping in the meadow,
Her mane a banner on the wind,
Her hooves drumming the old songs
Into the heart of the valley.
Since then, we have wandered—
Carrying our stories like embers,
Trying to keep them alive against the wind.
The devils took our land,
But it is the silence that claimed us,
A silence where names are whispered only in dreams,
And the faces of Fatima and Black
Are shadows we chase across the snow.
We left our lands for the devils,
Who flattened houses, men, and fields,
To sing, “We are storms, we are lions.”
And still, the time passes so slowly,
The snow falls, and the heights remember—
But no window is lit by Fatima’s lamp,
No meadow is stirred by Black’s gallop,
And the world waits,
Haunted by all that will never return.
***
Indeed, within my heart, I miss you both—
I miss you, Black.
I miss you, Fatima.
*****
***
*.
( Anfal : The Act of Looting and Killing Which is Legitimately practiced by Muslims. )
Black, absolutely, truly , really- indeed was one of our horses, was taken in the Anfal).
Gottesacker, or God acre
