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There was once a country of pearly dawns, of fruit dusted with light its valleys stretched forever into the distance all eternity flowed in its rivers In the village drenched in shadows hidden and peaceful the woman rolls the round stone and crushes the grain of life -- an act unchanged since the beginning of time Bonded by the same destiny two red cows trample the moistened grass with their hooves as they plod around their eternal circle. Children fed on milk and bread, squat in the dust, their dirty faces laughing in the sunshine -- for no reason at all Settled on a bench, his beard trembling the old man greedily drinks in each second of fleeting time The sunset splashes the mountains the day is ending Inside their shuttered homes people pray to God. Why have the trees been killed?

the houses leveled? the streams stopped from flowing? in the abandoned village the silence strikes our hearts Why is the mountain petrified by an invisible menace? Why for days and days and days does life go underground? Because suddenly.... Because suddenly the sky embraces the fires of hell, tearing apart the waiting from beyond, the bewildering echo from the roaring of the phantoms of death Unhappiness spreads across the village the old man flattened beneath his house the whitened trees twisted from their suffering Buried beneath the safety of the rock I saw the air vibrate with the pain of massacre In the evening, in the destroyed mosque, people prostrate themselves calling God from under His tent.