From a poem by Iraqi poet Badr Shakir As-Sayyab (my translation):
I read my name on a rock
here,
in the solitude of the desert,
on a red brick,
on a tomb.
How does a person feel
upon seeing his tomb?
He sees it and feels perplexity:
Is he dead or alive?
It does not suffice that
he sees his shadow on sand,
like a dusty minaret
like a gravesite
like past glory...
and now dust feeds from it
and fires eat up its meaning,
and conquerors kick it
without shoes
without feet
and wounds bleed from it,
without pain, and without blood
because he is dead...
And we died in it,
those of us who are
dead and those who are alive.
We are all dead
and this is our tomb:
the ruins of a dusty minaret...
And from my grandfather a chant
roamed with the tide,
filling the beaches:
“Oh, our valleys rebel!
And oh, remaining blood on
the generations, the legacy
of the masses,
splinter now, and smash
these chains, and like
an earthquake, shake the yoke,
or smash it and smash us
with it.”