Homeland

From the poem Homeland by Syrian poet Adonis (my translation):
"To the faces that harden under the mask of melancholy
I bow down; to the paths where I left my tears behind,
to a father who died as green as a cloud
with a sail on his face
I bow down; and to a child who is sold
in order for him to pray and to shine shoes
(We all in my country pray, we all shine shoes)
and to a rock where I carved with my hunger
that it is rain that rolls down under my eyelashes, and lightening
and to the soil of a house which I transported in my loss
I bow down--all that is my homeland, not Damascus."