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I've been "gone" for years. At this point I was over the Atlantic, nervous and guilty, feeling like I'd abandoned my land and family. And my time had come. And for what? Some inscrutable impulse? To find the perimeter of my self? Thinking this and trying to think it through Syro-Lebanese proverbs. Because I was looking for the language lessons one learns before one knows it. Before one's consciously socialized. Trying to "piece it together." Each poem in this series is at least three – right column, left column, and together – forwards and backwards. The phrase is the fundamental unit. An utterance.