ذكراك يا يوم

Your memory, O day, cuts deep into the viscera.

Behold, the crowd approaches like beast upon beast.

O day, no sun ever rose upon the likes of you.

The morning light is drowned, and the place of refuge brings destruction.

Your memory, O day, ceases not its ceaseless circling.

It haunts sleep, and so drives slumber away.

The sanctuary was startled while the people were heedless.

The destroyer spared neither a young boy nor a young girl.

In you, sudden darkness befell a band of radiant souls.

They killed their mother, who had brought them to life just yesterday.

They drove them toward victory, and were repaid with shattering.

Like one who ransomed the captives, only to spend his nights in captivity.

Alas for one plunging headlong at the edge of life.

A transgressor toppled him, and he crashed forward upon his chest.

Alas for a nursing infant whose mother was soiled in dust.

He had neither journeyed far nor chosen misery as his goal.

Upon the people fell your heavy, left-handed blow.

They woke to find themselves touched by severe hardship and adversity.

O day, your memory never departs from the mind.

If your path were to sweep past the lion, even he would not charge.

You have sown briars whose roots grow in the chest.

How then could we forget you, given such a betrayal?