Dawn Visitors
At the entries to capital cities I met him,

distracted and sad,

a man with worry lines

that weighed him down

like a cypress tree, drooping and silent,

despite the winds that ruffled him

whispering in the evenings-

but he would not answer the wind..

At the gates of capital cities-I cannot name them

but I sing their Arabic names when troubles reign-

I call on the capitals when shells are slaughtering my people's

children. I call on them, I scream, but no one

answers.

They've all travelled west, and north. I wish

they'd gone east, I wish

they'd become stars in exile, servants to strangers.

At harvest time they sang under the pine trees

but none of the harvests was theirs..

it is for those hard hearted men

who owns the land of exile

Don't bury me in any Arab capital, they've all tortured me

for so long,

giving me nothing but death and suffering and poverty

and the martyred neighbors of my grave,

those new kinsmen, for every stranger is kinsman to the stranger.

No, don't bury me in any Arab capital

at the mercy of this ordeal!

At the gate of the capitals I met him

his head forever bent,

immortal as the earth of Hebron,

proud as the mountains of Safad.

He was soft like old wine when it steeps inside the body.

I would have tempted the stars

to accompany his beautiful departure,

a star to guard him, and one lovely maiden

to tend him forever.