From BALCONIES: A MEDITERRANEAN MEMOIR
by Mishka Mojabber Mourani

We, in Lebanon, no longer write

About eternity and butterflies.

Is it because art, too,

Can only be the lot

Of those who are 'civilized'?

And are we to be, with this, too,

Quite satisfied?

Is endurance, then,

The subtraction of poetry

From one's precariously committed existence?