Ruins Poem by Omar Abu Risha

Stop! draw near! here indeed is the place where man is driven
from his senses.
Sands, rubble, a castle whose summits have toppled seeking its
foundation.
Dazed, I survey it, inquiring of my today concerning its yesterday:
Did life truly flow over it?
Did eyelids close over its intimacy?
The nightingales chanted its good fortune-while the fates hastened
its disaster.
Can I mak the stones speak of their sculptors, or raise the dead
from the tomb?
Thorns are not nourished at its breast, nor does the owl croak over it.
Even the spiders, terrified, seek to escape its prison.
The hand of destruction has tires over it, fearing harm from
its touch.
Here illusion shakes its phantoms, and death kills itself in its despair.