Bassamat al-farah (The Smile of Joy)

Theology Today, Jan 2002 by Bartow, Charles L

A sonnet composed following the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center Towers in New York City, September 11, 2001. The smile of joy on the lips of suicide bombers indicates their belief that their death is a martyr's death. Such a death is their guarantee of entrance into paradise.

Last night my mother came to me in dreams

To tuck me in and help me say my prayers,

As long ago she used to climb the stairs

To where I'd lie awake, in dread of schemes

Drawn up by attic demons who, with screams

Of terror, hauled young children to their lairs

And turned them into demons with no cares--

No souls for caring. Mother's prayers cast beams

Of searing light against the nightmare dark,

And still they do, as I attempt to pray

My rage at careless demons in the sky,

Bassamat al-farah etched cold and stark

Upon their lips, who crash in flame and flay

Grown children's souls for whom fierce mothers cry.

Charles L. Bartow is Carl and Helen Egner Professor of Speech Communication in Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of God's Human Speech: A Practical Theology of Proclamation (1997).