back to the peasants to the fellaheen born
— 47 Soul

I have returned. I stretch with the land, from the hot core where it all began to the celestial sphere where it all ends. I expand into place with stories told by five hundred fellaheen. First, the story of how the farmers built a stone church by the bay tree where Sittna el-Ghareh appears. I feel the leaves rustle in my hair and the bells in my chest. Then, the story that is a scar on my heart: how Nadimie almost left her daughter, my mother, by the village well. The stories mark my body with trees and springs and stones. I have returned to where Nadimie tends olive trees and where her husband, Usef, shepherds the goats roaming the hills. We live there together between earth and sky keeping our home alive.