Who are you?

 I walked the tracks behind my studio this morning, through the train yard, and into the city. The air had the familiar smell of unfamiliarity. It reminded me of walking out of Damascus a few years ago, into the dry and dusty depths of it's sprawling incompleteness. It was the feeling of a child staring from the shadows of a doorway at a pale foreign face, and my staring back in overwhelming awareness of my isolation. I do not know the language here. I do not know the customs. I only know where the sun rises, and where the sun sets. So do my best to speak the language of faces, of sorrows, of incompleteness and isolation. I do my best to speak the language of yearning, of reaching, of the sun rising and the restlessness of the heart as it sets.

" 'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar. 

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, 'I — I hardly know, sir, just at present — at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.' 

'What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'

'I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see.' "

-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

I do not know who I am. I only know the experiences that have conspired to take up a this form. A form of ragged disposition and a longing gaze. I am the boy in the door way. I am the street sweeper. I am the fresh turned grave. I am the rising and the setting sun.