Hayan Charara

“I earn my living
teaching about the human condition, a composite
of violence, vengeance, and theft,
ingenuity, too, and forms of love unique
to men and women, the only species
that knows, consciously, what others of its kind
thought and did thousands of years before—
stories, myths, histories, philosophies,
all mirrors and constellations
showing humanity to itself,
none of which
will ensure our survival.”
― Hayan Charara, These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit: Poems