Sirah

Yemenat

Ahmed Saif Hashed

Sirah, the home of fishermen and the sea’s plaintive songs — “Heila… heila heila…” Sirah of the sea and its delicious fish.

The fishermen venture out into the waters in search of an honest living, earned through the sweat of their brows. At sea, they offer their salted sweat, and the sea returns their gift with generous bounty.

The two meet and intertwine — the salt of their labor mingles with the salt of the sea, and together they exchange tender love, longing, and deep affection.

Ah, sorrowful Sirah, burdened beneath those beards after an age of civilization, glory, and grandeur. Aden clings to them, afflicted by hardship, its sins multiplying its misery, poverty, and ruin.

Aden is crushed between the two stones of the mill, feeding upon its own hunger and nursing its unhealed wounds.

To whom shall I complain of this endless darkness, when Sana’a lies in an even deeper night, O Aden?

Sana’a lives in an exile of a thousand years, trapped within its own past, armed with shadows, living ruin within ruin.

Ah, Sirah, an abandoned fortress — empty and fading.

Desolation and crows dwell within its walls.

A fortress stretched thin by emptiness, with no archers, no knights, no men — only tongues sharp as blades.

It is haunted by spirits and the ghosts of forsaken alleys.

Sirah, whose fish are sold elsewhere for a cheap price, while within you, O Aden, they are priceless.

Who owns the sea? Answer me, O Aden.

Sirah, the pain of tragedy filled with sighs, where the laments of funerals echo in sorrow.

The joy once found here has been confiscated by those beards.

Sirah, the broken soul steeped in bitterness and defeat, my own stifled cry beneath the weight of oppression.

How long have