What shall I say to the body I abandoned
in the rubble of the house
in which I was born?
No one can narrate my childhood
except those stars that flicker above it
and that leave footprints
on the evening’s path.

My childhood is still
being born in the palms of a light
whose name I do not know
and who names me.

- Adonis -

excerpt from Celebrating Childhood
translated by Khaled Mattawa
 
Adonis (pen-name of Ali Ahmad Said Esber),
considered the greatest living Arab poet,
born January 1, 1930 in Syria, lives in France.