The cry of the Women in Black (Marcella Boccia)

They wear the black
a veil that drapes over their grief
a shroud of sorrow that no eyes can pierce
no words can soothe
They stand in the streets
silent but for the cry that trembles in the air
a cry that carries through the valley
and echoes through the mountains
an inconsolable sound
that the world does not hear
Their husbands taken in the night
pulled from their beds by the hands of soldiers
dragged into the darkness
never to return
The doors they once passed through
now shut tight with a quiet cruelty
their homes emptied
by the violence of an occupation
that steals not only lives
but hope itself
The women
in their black burqas
are like shadows in the streets
their faces hidden
but their hearts laid bare for all to see
They cry for the husbands
who never came home
for the men whose bodies are lost to them
whose names are erased
by the bullets that tore through them
and the silence that swallowed
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their final breath
"Give us the body"
they cry
their voices cracking with grief
their eyes pleading for justice
that will never come
"Let us bury him
let us say goodbye"
But the soldiers
the ones who took them
who tore apart their families
refuse
They keep the bodies hidden
locked away in the cold earth
unseen
ungrieved
unremembered
The women are left to mourn
in the streets
in their homes
in the emptiness of their hearts
Each day they wait
their sorrow a wound that will never heal
And each day
the silence grows louder
the absence of their loved ones
a wound that time cannot touch
They are the women in black
the mothers of the disappeared
the wives of the fallen
Their cries rise like smoke
a bitter cloud over a land
that refuses to mourn with them
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And yet
they do not stop
they will not stop
They gather in the streets
with nothing but their sorrow
and a plea for a body they may never hold
Their voices
though hushed
are stronger than any gunshot
For even in their despair
they remember
they endure
and they carry the memory
of their lost husbands
the memory of the men
who will never return
And so
the women in black weep
a cry that will not fade
a cry that will haunt the land
until the day
when the truth of their pain
is heard by those who have the power
to return their men
to bring them home
so they can finally rest
beneath the soil of their land
where they belong