The candle stutters in the desert breeze Sets the characters dancing on a dusty page The hearts of darkness beat in the starlight A burning bush, the ashes glow, charcoals blacken the embers Show the words of the prophet The promise of miracles, prayers of deliverance, faith in the fire Before a timeless dawn the shadows crawl, the dew evaporatеs The rising sun signals the movemеnt a world in motion The woodsmoke lingers in the patchy thorns Where partridge scuffle a nervous squall, a panicking hare breaks from his cover The figures wander through familiar lands The razored rock, the scorching sands Follow the footsteps of lost generations That gathered the flowers to place in their baskets The scent of the petals carries the memories The eternal fragrance of the rose of Damascus In the back of a bouncing car Potholes abound on the dark road to city lights Heading for coffee bars, singing along to the songs on the radio The spell of a Friday night Bewitches their hearts and banishes sadness Lost in their teenage dreams, careless and free to their fate, they're oblivious Her blouse unbuttoned, she opens the collar Checks the mirror for her lipstick smile Smoothing her dress, she glances behind her Condemning eyes are now so far away She moves in the bustling crowds Her confidence shows, her presence invisible The beat of the pulsing night lifting her High on the wings of a butterfly Deaf to the gathering storm, screams in the darkness Whispers in alleyways She joins with the growing throng, carried away unaware of her destiny She breathes in the wind of change, heady with hope The promise of freedoms Leaving the lights behind, a tear in her eye She heads into the darkness She wraps her skirts in ancient tissue paper Folds them away within the cellophane Her heels in boxes, her blouse fully buttoned She hides her heart until another day She breathes in the wind of change, heady with hope The promise of freedoms Joining the growing throng, carried away unaware of her destiny Defiance scrawled on the walls Inspiring the ranks of keyboard warriors The authors are all long gone, snatched in their sleep Or dreaming in uniforms Guarding the cellar doors from the chill powdered snows From the Anti-Lebanon That silently lay a shroud on the fields of the dead And the Damask roses Colourless men under colourless skies herd broken creatures Reeking of fear into dark caves for slaughter Desiccated heads pinned on the rusty railings, in a flyblown square Where the pendulums of corpses, hanging from the streetlights Mark silent time, on a never-ending war Cynical rockets fly in on soft targets Creeping artillery round up the districts Over which helicopters hover, carrying Pandora's boxes to eviscerate To eliminate the survivors below Sleek roaring jets glint on the horizon To arrive in a moment to unleash merciless retribution A hellish symphony, a monotonous cacophony A soundtrack for the carnage On the petrified innocents, the interminable onslaught From unchallenged skies She came to in the rubble, in the debris of her memories In a broken world she couldn't recognise She wanders in the landscape, a solemn wraithlike figure In the company of ghosts she knew before Through the canyons of the labyrinth The twisted concrete skeletons The clouds of smoke and dust that fill the skies The blinding light, it fell out of the heavens And changed her life forever She's no one left, everything has gone, she knows she has to leave Nowhere to shelter, no food, no heat, no water Struggling to survive On the edge of the shadows, she's aware the snipers follow; The clock is ticking down She was searching for a vision, some sign to give direction In this wasteland where it's a curse to be alive When there across the crippled street, on a terracotta balcony A splintered shard of colour caught her eye The sweet familiar fragrance, the delicate fragile petals Of the Damask rose The flowers blown and battered, the roots exposed and tattered It wills to thrive Her nurturing hand wraps the treasured cuttings In a fist of moistened clay To carry on her journey, to find another homeland Somewhere to blossom and come alive The windscreen wipers battle futilely Against the swirling dust storms Their soothing rhythm and the movement of the bus Providing some temporary reassurance Lulling her into an uneasy sleep Cautiously threading their way along ancient smugglers routes Down through the valleys Under a ceiling of stark starlight, her only baggage The fragments of the horrors she couldn't leave behind The passage was paid for in greedy exchanges With callous strangers full of promises and peddling hope Whose cold lecherous eyes followed her As she took the transport up the coast To a deserted inlet out of sight of prying eyes and guardian angels She felt the sands shift under her feet The waves racing up onto the moonlit beach Dancing around her ankles The ebb pulling her further into the swelling tide Allowing the powerful but gentle lift of the chilling waters To carry her to waiting hands To be pulled up onto the fearful overcrowded boat She stares out into the night towards the dark sea That disappears into the horizon Her past slips into the distance behind Her as she nurses the slender waxed-cotton bundle That holds her treasured stems, her roots, her legacy Her destiny