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I see heading East the pearl-colored
march of clouds
roses lend their blood to young
soldiers drowning in the Tigris
flowers triumph
over the human race
their tragedies are
short-lived
their agonies exude incense and myrrh
at the entrance of
temples they are the
ones to be eternally eternal.

I envy their youth
their lucency their
quiddity
we are the shadows and they,
our hosts.

I was always an Arab, and have been like that not even as a Lebanese or a Syrian. I always felt like an Arab. It makes no difference to me. For example, I went to Morocco in 1966 and when I entered to the hotel and heard Umm Kalthum in the lobby, I said to myself: here is the Arab World. When it comes into expression, of course there is a problem because I went to French schools and my mother being Greek we did not speak Arabic at home. Children learn language at school and at home. I didn’t speak Arabic neither at home nor in the school. I grew up knowing French. I also speak Greek and Turkish, because my mother was Greek from Turkey and my father was an Arab in the Ottoman Empire. So, I knew these two languages, but I never learned them in school. So I don’t have a problem in identity like saying who am I? Because I feel I am an Arab, I am a woman, and I am a person in the 20th Century, and hopefully the 21st Century. But, when I write of course I have that question. For whom am I writing? For Americans I am an Arab. Arabs say why don’t you write in Arabic? So, we have to solve that problem through translations, and also I think the notion of identity should change. Identity is not a race. It is a culture and it is a commitment. I am committed to the Arab World and I am an Arab.