Venus Khoury-Ghata Biography

In those days I know now words declaimed the wind
besides pebbles, there were moons, but no lamps
the stars would emerge later from a brawl between two flintstones
...

we were lent a window on a fragment of the world
We we re the house and the road that led to the house
The mother moved the door each time a train went by and at each procession toward
...

Where do words come from?
from what rubbing of sounds are they born
on what flint do they light their wicks
what winds brought them into our mouths
...

Calling trees and children to put their noises away in their pencil-cases
And come sit at the table with their backs to the fire where the bones of a
thousand-league old willow are burning
...

so my brother spoke the words of the arbutus
so the mother thickened her sauces with the ash tree's black resin
The female branches made off with the laundry on our lines
the young shoots leapt into our nights
...