Poem: Do You Love Me While I Am Blind?
Written by Nizar Qabbani:
She asked him, “Do you love me while I am blind,
In this world where there are many girls?
Some are beautiful, attractive, and sweet,
Are you not just a madman
Or merely pitying a girl with no sight?”
He replied, “Indeed, I am a lover, my dear,
And all I wish from this life
Is that you become my wife,
For God has granted me wealth,
And I do not think healing is impossible.”
She said, “If you return my sight,
I will accept you, my destiny,
And I will spend my life with you.
But who will restore my eyes,
And what night will be left for him?”
One day, he came to her in a rush,
“Rejoice, I have found a donor,
And you will see what God has created and fashioned,
And you will fulfill your promise,
To become my wife.”
On the day she opened her eyes,
He was standing there, holding her hand,
Her eyes widened as she screamed,
“Are you also blind?”
She wept for her ill fate.
He said, “Do not be sad, my beloved,
You will be my eyes and my guide.
So when will you become my wife?”
She replied, “I cannot marry a blind man,
For now I can finally see.”
He wept and said, “Forgive me,
Who am I to ask you to marry me?
But before you leave me,
Please promise to take care of my eyes.”
Other Poems by Nizar Qabbani
Among the poems composed by Nizar Qabbani, the following are notable:
A Foolish Woman
Dear Sir,
This is a letter from a foolish woman.
Have you ever received a letter from a fool before me?
As for my name, let’s set names aside.
Am I not Um Zainab,
Or Hind, or Haifa?
The silliest thing we carry are names.
Dear Sir,
I fear to express my thoughts;
I am afraid that if I do, the sky might catch fire.
Your East, dear Sir,
Censors the blue messages,
Oppresses women’s dreams,
Uses knives and axes
When addressing women,
Slaughtering spring and longing
Along with black braids.
Your East, dear Sir,
Crafts a crown of honor
From the skulls of women.
Do not criticize me, Sir,
If my handwriting is poor,
For I write with the executioner behind my door,
And outside, the sounds of wind and dogs.
Oh, Sir,
If Antara al-Absi is behind my door,
He will slay me if he sees my letter.
He will cut off my head
If he sees through my thin attire.
I expressed my suffering
In your East, dear Sir,
Women are besieged by cruelty,
Men sell themselves as prophets,
And bury women in the ground.
Do not be disturbed, dear Sir,
By my words.
Do not be disturbed!
If I break the sealed bottle of ages,
If I remove the lead ring from my conscience,
If I flee from the chambers of harims in palaces,
If I rebel against my death…
My grave, and its roots,
And the great slaughterhouse.
Do not be disturbed, dear Sir!
If I expose my feelings,
For the Eastern man
Does not care about poetry or feelings…
The Eastern man
Sees the woman only within the bed.
Pardon me, pardon me, dear Sir,
If I have encroached on the kingdom of men,
All thoughts of pain and sorrow about life,
Literature has always been a domain of men,
And love has been their turf,
And sex has always been a drug sold to men.
The myth of women’s freedom in our countries
Is no freedom but that of men.
So, dear Sir,
Say what you wish about me,
I will not care,
Superficial, foolish, crazy, silly,
I no longer care.
For a woman who writes about her concerns
In the logic of men is deemed a fool.
Didn’t I say at the beginning of this letter
That I am a foolish woman?
Take It Easy on My Nerves
You have spread through my flesh and nerves
And possessed me with the cleverness of a squirrel.
You have seeped into my voice,
My language, my notebooks, and the threads of my garments.
You’ve spread through me like a spring sun,
And your spring has adorned all my doors.
You have spread until my hands’ veins,
And my cups drop trouble and desire.
You have spread through me like thunder and lightning,
Like ears of wheat and vine’s grapes.
You have spread even into the bones, oh woman,
So pause gently, for mercy’s sake, on my nerves.
Does He Think
Does he think that I am just a toy in his hands?
I do not plan on returning to him.
Today he returned as if nothing happened,
With the innocence of children in his eyes,
To tell me that I am his path companion
And that I am his only love.
He brought flowers for me… How should I respond
When my youth is mirrored on his lips?
I remember how I fled to his arms,
Hiding my head there as if I were a child
Returned to his parents,
And even the dresses I had neglected
Rejoiced in his presence and danced at his feet.
I forgave him and inquired about his news,
I wept for hours on his shoulders,
And without me knowing, I left my hands
To comfortably sleep like a bird between his fingers.
And in a moment, I forgot all my hatred.
Who said that I bore hatred towards him?
How many times have I said I wouldn’t return to him,
Yet here I am… How sweet it is to return to him.
In the Café
Beside me, she took her seat,
Like a vase of roses in her calmness,
With a book in her hand,
Gathering the remnants of her faith.
Her cup leaps from eagerness
In my hands, yearning for hers.
Oh, the sun’s hat under which
Summer chases its tail!
The light circulates on her knee,
And my soul trembles within.
She drinks from her cup,
While I sip from her eyelids,
A tale of two eyes binding me.
Who saw the stars in her storm?
Every time I gaze into her eyes, she laughs,
As the snow undresses in her teeth.
Join me for morning coffee,
And do not bury yourself in your sorrows,
For I am your neighbor, my lady,
And the hills inquire about their neighbors.
Who am I? Let questions vanish,
I am a canvas seeking its colors.
I ask for an appointment, my lady! And she smiled,
Pointing to her address,
When I looked, I saw nothing
But the imprint of red in her cup.
The Sisters
Oh, sister, give me the red pen,
In the balconies of my thoughts, my meeting with him.
Where are my pigments, my comb, my ornaments?
I possess a longing like the whirlwind.
Pass me the dress from its hanging place
And from the plush fabric, bring forth the finest.
Please style and beautify me,
Color my pallid nails; for I am in a hurry!
Is there still time to salvage him
From the hand ready to tear him apart?
I did not lie to God in what I claim,
I feel my heart nearly abandoning its place,
Oh, Hind, has he moved on?
And I am astonished, colorless;
Now it is time for our appointment,
A splendid forehead, towering,
A garment that collects the sun’s rays,
And the color of the four seasons.
I will neither name it nor will it be called.
If the feathers ask for warmth,
I will protect myself with it.
Focus, oh Hind, and get to work,
For on the clouds of observation, my meeting awaits!
Poem: Love Without Boundaries
Do not worry about the rhythm of time and the names of years,
You are a woman who remains a woman at all times.
I will love you
When we enter the twenty-first century,
And when we step into the twenty-fifth,
And when the twenty-ninth century arrives.
And I will love you
When the waters of the sea dry up
And the forests ignite.
Oh my lady,
You are the essence of all poetry
And the flower of every freedom.
It suffices that I spell your name
To become the king of poetry
And the Pharaoh of words.
It suffices me that a woman like you loves me
For me to enter the history books
And for flags to rise for my sake.
Oh my lady,
Do not flutter like a bird in festive times.
Nothing will change in me;
The river of love will never stop flowing,
The heartbeat will never cease its rhythm,
The flight of poetry will never cease.
When love is profound
And the beloved is a moon,
This love will never become a bundle of straw
To be consumed by flames.
Oh my lady, there is nothing that fills my eyes,
Not the lights nor the decorations,
Not the bells of holidays nor the Christmas trees,
The street means nothing to me,
The tavern means nothing to me,
No words concern me.
Poem: A Hundred Love Letters
I want to travel from the pages of the dictionary
And request a vacation from my mouth,
For I am tired of the curve of my lips.
I want another mouth
That can transform at will
Into a cherry tree
Or a matchstick.
I want a new mouth
From which words pour forth
Like mermaids emerging from the sea’s foam,
Like white chicks from the magician’s hat.
Poem: You Are the Language
I want different fingers to write
In a different way,
For I despise fingers that neither grow nor shorten,
Just as I despise trees that neither die nor grow.
I want fresh fingers,
Tall like the masts of ships,
And long like the necks of giraffes,
So I may tailor for my beloved
A shirt from poetry that she has not worn before.
I want to create for you an alphabet
Unfamiliar to all alphabets,
With something of the rhythm of rain,
Something of the sorrow of gray clouds,
And something of the pain of the willows.
September’s carriages opened,
I want to gift you a treasure of words
That has never been gifted to a woman before,
And that will never be bestowed upon a woman after you,
Oh woman,
Neither before you was there a before,
Nor after you will there be an after.
Poem: Your Love Is a Green Bird
Your love is a green bird,
A strange green bird
That grows, my love, just like the birds.
It taps from my fingers
And pecks from my eyelids.
When did this beautiful green bird arrive?
I did not think about it, my love,
For those who love do not think.
Your love is a golden child
Breaking everything in its path.
It visits me when the sky rains,
Plays with my feelings, and I endure.
Your love is a troublesome child
Who puts everyone to sleep, my love,
And keeps awake after all;
A child on his tears I cannot endure.
Your love grows on its own,
Like fields blooming,
Like almond and pine trees on our hills,
Like sweetness running in the heart of a peach.
Your love surrounds me like air, my love,
It envelops me from all sides without knowing or feeling.
The island of your love cannot be imagined,
A dream among dreams
Neither spoken of nor interpreted.
Is your love a flower or a dagger,
Or is it a candle that lights
Or a storm that devastates,
Or is it the will of God that cannot be thwarted?
All that I know about my feelings is that you are, my love,
The beloved who loves, never thinking.