For Raja Shehadeh

I won’t go back to the ashen hills

where the shattered donkey died.

A premature sacrifice,

just another dead donkey.

I won’t go back to the echoing walls.

A falcon streaks below,

and above, the crows.

I won’t go back to the broken hills,

and who shaped the ruined gardens,

to drift among the earthly cyclamen clouds?

I know of those gardeners and their lovely gardens.

I won’t go back to the ghosts of Nabi Musa,

or to the springs, descending with my heart,

to the bitter, shrinking sea.