We Are the Builders of the Beginning and the Builders of Return

Written as poems grounded in historical evidence, these chapters return to the lands where time mixed clay with sunlight and farming began. A hand keeps back seed at Abu Hureyra beside the Euphrates, the house learns to remain, clay becomes memory at Ebla, Mari gathers the roads of the river, and the letters of Ugarit cross the silence along the coast. The craftsperson who carries a city in their hands follows, then an old key carried through exile, a plan with room for everyone in the house, and a homeland wide enough for those who return and those who stayed. At the journey's end a child appears, and the book asks for a beginning earned through justice that reaches the most distant village.