A Poem of Another Love
- The poet Ghada al-Samman expresses in her poem “A Poem of Another Love”:
I invented your love so I wouldn’t stay in the rain without an umbrella.
I forged telegrams of love from you for myself!
I conceived your love like someone singing alone in the dark
So they wouldn’t be afraid.
When we love, the heart becomes haunted by ghosts,
Memory bathes in perfume, tears, and the scent of apples.
When we love, the wait mourns at the café table,
Past memories parade in the street before us, and we shower them with jasmine,
We forget the noise of roaming vendors with microphones,
And the wailing of police cars and ambulances, wedding horns
And funerals.
I will not arrange my dead in the cave of my depths with all their medals,
I will not describe them like soldiers who died in the cracks of sorrow,
Nor will I sit to write them with the hand of shadows,
Rather, I will love you, and I will not fail in inventing this love!
I Love Women in All Their Diversity
- The poet Al-Farazdaq remarks on love:
I love women, and they are diverse,
With subtle whispers and soft gazes,
Impediments to the forbidden without indecency,
And they offer what is lawful.
I have found that love is not healed except by
A meeting that eradicates languor.
I tell a woman whose hands are worn,
And whose journey has strained her
If you knew, you would say, “Ignite my heart,”
And do not complain to me of your weariness.
For you have reached your peak, so do not be
Like a grinding stone that has been filled.
Your wanderings are burdensome to me,
And you entrust me with the weight of anxieties.
And return the whip to where it met
The strongest bonds, where it roamed freely.
Neither the desert of demons nor the flint from roots
Can prevent you from wandering the rocks,
For before you, the guide provides
What the Most Merciful bestows upon those fearing loss.
And your palace from your generosity, let me know,
Like the seas when they swell and surge.
I looked at you as you waited for God until
The grasp of the dust swept away from you.
I looked for signs in the markets at hand,
And said perhaps the one who built the mountains
Will endow him with treasures from every land,
And I would not be hopeless of being rescued.
This led to your misfortunes fading,
Your father’s legacy when it appeared to you.
And indeed, you have been granted the highest victory,
Over the tyrants when they sent forth the cavalry.
With elegance in the way of evil,
They want for you the glory.
For God said: “You are of the elite,”
Greater than the seekers of your downfall.
He gave you the authority without force,
And you did not seize it forcefully.
When you assumed authority, your hands were conflicted
With the cords of unity and the strings of royalty,
You placed them behind you, and they felt secure,
In the place of the full moon when it became a crescent.
And they had a pact from your father; therein
Are the qualities that perfect them fully.
Piety and assurance for people equitably,
And those most beset by its overflow.
God has increased the betrayers, though they tried,
And I do not concede to scoring lows.
The betrayers were, and what they wanted,
Like shepherds of sheep when they set forward.
Behind their darkness, one fears upon her,
To prevent her, yet they have failed chivalry.
{Your feet become my duty as the wind rises,
Your eyebrows embody the borrowed designs,
والمنايا}
A Poem of Resolve
- The poet Nizar Qabbani states:
I loved you… and I made my choice.
To whom shall I offer my apologies?
No authority in love exceeds my own.
My opinion is prime; my choice is mine.
These are my feelings… so do not interfere.
Please, between the seas and the oceans,
Remain on neutral ground, for I
Will add determination to determination.
What do I fear? I embody all the laws
And I am the ocean… and you are among my rivers.
I am the women; I have made them rings
On my fingers… and stars in my orbit.
Stay silent… do not speak.
For I am the one who engages women in dialogue.
I am the one who grants decrees of love
To those standing before the door of my shrine.
I am the one who arranges my state… and my maps,
And I am the one choosing the color of my ocean.
I decide who enters my paradise,
And I decide who enters my fire.
I am in love, sovereign… in control,
In every passion, there is an essence of colonization.
So surrender to my will and my desires
And greet my rains with childlike joy.
Should I have anything to say, know that
I will speak to the One Who Conquers.
Your eyes alone are my license,
My ships, and the friends of my journeys.
If I have a homeland… your face is my homeland,
Or if I have a home… your love is my dwelling.
Who accounts me for you… since you are to me
The gift of the heavens… and the fortune of fate?
Who can blame me for what dwells in my blood
Of pearls… and emeralds… and shells?
Do they debate the rooster for its colors?
And the anemones in bloom?
O you… my sovereign and my queen,
O my celestial star… my Ishtar!
I love you… without any reservations
And I live within you as I am born … and I perish.
I have committed to you… willingly and purposefully,
If I am ignominy… then what a splendid ignominy it is!
What do I fear? And whom do I fear? I am the one who
Let time rest upon the echoes of my strings.
And I hold the keys to poetry in my hands
Before Bishar… and Mahyar.
And I have made poetry warm bread
And turned it into fruit on the trees.
I have sailed in the ocean of women… and I have yet to
Remain, since that day… my news became nil.
You are the forest walking on its feet
And sprinkling me with cloves and spices.
Your lips ignite like scandals
And your breasts stand alert.
And my relationship with them remains intimate
Like the relationship between revolutionaries.
So indulge in my love every moment
And bless my streams and my seeds.
I am truly remarkable… if you love me,
Then learn to comprehend my moods.
Who can put me on trial? And you are my case
And the companion of my dreams, and the light of my days.
Who can threaten me? And you are my civilization
And my culture, my writing, and my beacon.
I have declared independence from all tribes
And left behind my tent and my dust.
They reject my childhood and my prophecies
And I have turned down cities of pottery.
All the tribes do not want their women
To discover love in my poetry.
All the kings I have known…
Have cut my hands and confiscated my verses.
But I have fought them… and I overcame them
And passed through history like a hurricane.
I toppled with my words a thousand caliphs…
And etched a thousand walls with my verses.
O my darling… the ship has sailed,
So take a stand like a dove beside me.
Crying and lamentation are now of no use to you,
For I have loved you… and I made my choice.
I Remember Laila and Days Gone By
The poet Qais Ibn Al-Mulawwaḥ expresses his love for Laila:
I remember Laila and the bygone years
On days we did not fear the pleasures of life.
And the day, like the shadow of a spear, shortened its shadow
With Laila. It engrossed me, yet I was not unaware.
A man among the crowd said, and I glimpsed a star
That appeared in the darkness of the night, solitary.
I told him, No, it is the fire of Laila that has ignited
Above me; its glow rose, appearing to me.
Oh, if the riders’ pace had not severed the grass,
I wish the grass had walked with the riders at night.
Oh, how many desires I have in the night
When I come to you at night, I know not what they are.
My friend, if you do not weep for me, I seek
A friend; if I shed tears, may he weep with me.
And God may reunite the two separated hearts,
When they think all is lost, that they will never meet.
Curse be upon those who say we have found
That throughout time, love is curative.
And Laila has not made me forget riches or poverty,
Nor will I repent until I embrace her once more.
Nor have women adorned me with a manner similar to Laila
As they have shown Laila then presented her to me.
My friend, I swear by Allah, I cannot possess that which
God has decreed in Laila, nor what has been decreed for me.
He ordained it for another, and afflicted me with love for her,
If only he could have done so without Laila.
You have informed me that Tayma is a resting place
For Laila, if only the summer brings its rites.
These summer months have passed us by,
So what reason does the yearning have in aiming towards Laila?
If a whisperers in Yamama held residence,
And my dwelling in upper Hadhramaut guided me to her.
And what ignorance dares to change their fortune,
On their behalf in the time of Laila’s travels?
I had once held my affection for Laila high, yet it did not cease
To falter deep inside, until I became exposed.
My Lord, rearrange love between me and her,
So it may be balanced, neither high nor low.
The star that guides upon which I rely
Has not risen, nor has dawn stirred nostalgia for her.
Neither have I traveled a mile from Damascus nor seen
Suhail in the land of the Levant, only for it to appear to me.
Nor have I named her in my encounters with a name,
Except for my tears, that exposed my grief.
And when the south winds blow towards her land,
It is the night when I bend for the winds.
If you prevent Laila or shield her grounds from my coming,
Then, do not protect my verses from the melodies.
So bear witness in front of God that I love her,
For this she has with me, and not with her.
God has deemed it well-known from her for another,
And with longing from me and passion, it was decreed for me.
And the one whom I hoped for in you, O owner of Malik,
Has turned my hair gray, and underestimated my heart..
I count the nights, night after night,
And I have lived for ages not counting the nights.
I emerge from the shadows between the houses, perhaps I
Should speak leisurely of you beneath the night sky.
When I pray, I find myself turning to her,
With my face, even if the worshiper are behind me.
I do not share the blame, but love her,
And the depths of grief have baffled the healing physician.
I love from the names those that correspond with hers,
Or resemble it, or are distant relatives.
My friend, Laila is the greatest of my ambitions and aspirations,
So who among me or who is for her?
By my life, you have made me shed tears, O dove
Of the Al-Aqiq, and you have made my eyes weep.
By my life, you have made me shed tears, O dove
Of the Al-Aqiq, and you have made my eyes weep.
My friend, what do I expect from life after
I see my needs for sale yet cannot purchase her?
O Lord, since you have appointed Laila as my wish,
Balance me with her two eyes just as you balanced my love.
And Laila will then claim that I have forgotten,
And it will not be hidden from the people my love for her.
Otherwise, enmity comes from her and her kin,
For indeed in Laila I encountered the physicians of the heartbearers.
I have not seen like us, my friend, longing that is
Intensified with respect to the enemies.
My friend, if they begrudge me Laila, close to me,
Bring me sleep and shrouds and seek forgiveness for me.
My friend, if they begrudge me Laila, close to me,
Bring me sleep and shrouds and seek forgiveness for me.
Two companions who do not expect a meeting nor see
Two friends who do not hope for a reunion.