The Stranger In His Icon Poem by Ghassan Zaqtan

Nature that has left me hopeless
became arid in the fields

my abandoned homes in others' memories and feats
the girls on the pier
with ill-intent as they wait for me

the wolf's dream in its wilderness
the hyena desiring me and its neighbor

the cypress I tallied
the roads I folded

become distant and similar
while I forget and remember

I, who exaggerated everything,

go as alone as my mother had birthed me
and sit in my icon.