For I Am A Stranger Poem by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab

For I am a stranger
beloved Iraq
Far distant, and I here in my longing
For it, for her .. I cry out: Iraq
And from my cry a lament returns
An echo bursts forth
I feel I have crossed the expanse
To a world of decay that responds not
To my cry
If I shake the branches
Only decay will drop from them
Stones
Stones-no fruit
Even the springs
Are stones, even the fresh breeze
Stones moistened with blood
My cry a stone, my mouth a rock
My legs a wind straying in the wastes