The wind in the olive trees
Is making a terrible noise
I can barely hear
The locust crouching in the dark,
Playing like the blind fiddler
On the evening metro

Across a sinking country
Nobility finds form.
The smoke of a green candle
Rises into darkness,
An economy slides into dust,
The world is old but was always old.

A stick insect walks the length
Of an illuminated pool,
It's awkward arms in rotation
Like early machinery.

He pauses to listen to the wind
Then resumes his work.