THE EXHAUSTED PEOPLE Poem by Wadih Sa’adeh

The exhausted people were sitting in the square
listening to the soft winds which may have been peddlers
or loiterers who had lost their way.

The exhausted people had their own open square
where the paving stones had taken on human qualities;
if one of the people was missing,
they cried out for him.

The exhausted people were in the open square
and their faces grew more brittle each day,
their hair, softer
in the evening's faint light.
When they glanced at one another, their eyes were brittle
until they thought of themselves as glass
and shattered.