Wilderness Poem by Hibah Shabkhez

‘Angered seasons have ere now', creak the bones
Of the old, ‘laid cities to waste. Now time
Will uproot from our earth the enraged stones
And heap them upon our heads'. But the grime

Of their dreads leaves the young unmoved and sure
In changing with the changings of the free
World to find horizons broader and more
Alluring. This time's different. It's Me.

My land is dying, street by crumbling street.
'This used to be...' and ‘Here we used to have...'
I moan, and children flung ere it was meet
From this their cocoon, cannot laugh and brave

With their mocking ‘You should write a memoir'
This blitz of reminiscence. Their mute nods
Mourn one more thing swallowed up by the war:
Youth and old age duelling with time's rods.