Nizar Qabbani
Nizar Qabbani, a renowned Syrian poet and diplomat, was born in Damascus in 1923 and passed away in London in 1998. He published his first collection of poetry, titled “The Dark-Haired Woman,” in 1944. Qabbani also established his own publishing house in Beirut, named (Nizar Qabbani Publications). He is celebrated for his romantic poetry, including numerous love poems.
I Love You, I Love You, and This Is My Signature
In his verses about love, Nizar Qabbani expresses:
Do you have any doubt that you are the most beautiful woman in the world?
And the most important woman in the world?
Do you doubt that when I found you,
I held the keys to the universe?
Do you doubt that when I touched your hands,
The very fabric of the world changed?
Do you doubt that your entrance into my heart
Was the greatest day in history?
And the most beautiful news in the world?
Do you doubt who you are,
Oh, you who occupy moments in my eyes?
You, who shatter the sound barrier as you pass?
I do not know what happens to me,
For it seems you are my very first woman,
And before you, I never loved;
As if I had never practiced love, nor kissed, nor embraced.
You are my rebirth, and before your tenderness, I do not remember living.
And you are my blanket, and before your warmth, I do not remember existence.
As if I emerged from your womb like a bird.
Do you doubt that you are a part of my being,
And that I stole the fire from your eyes,
And launched my most dangerous revolutions?
Oh, you rose, the ruby, and the basil,
The sultaness,
The popular,
The legitimate among all queens.
You, a fish swimming in the waters of my life,
Oh, moon that rises each evening from the window of words,
Oh, greatest conquest among all my conquests,
Oh, last homeland in which I am born,
And where I will find my rest
And publish my writings.
Oh, woman of wonder, my woman,
I do not know how the waves cast me at your feet.
I do not know how I walked to you
And how you walked to me.
Oh, you, for whom all seabirds jostle,
To settle down in your embrace.
How fortunate I was to find you,
Oh, woman who becomes a part of poetry,
Warm as the sands of the sea,
Wonderful as the Night of Power.
Since the day you knocked on my door, my life began.
How beautiful my poetry has become,
When it thrived in your presence.
How rich and powerful I became
When God gifted you to me.
Do you have any doubt that you are a spark from my eyes
And that your hands are an extension of mine?
Do you have any doubt that your words emerge from my lips?
Do you have any doubt that I exist in you,
And you exist in me?
Oh, fire that consumes my being,
Oh, fruit that fills my branches,
Oh, body that cuts like a sword
And strikes like a volcano.
Oh, breast that scents the fields of tobacco
And rushes towards me like a horse.
Tell me,
How will I save myself from the waves of this flood?
Tell me,
What should I do? I am in a state of addiction.
Tell me the solution; my yearnings
Have reached the limits of delirium.
Oh, with the Greek nose,
And the Spanish hair,
Oh, woman who does not repeat in the span of thousands of years,
Oh, woman who dances barefoot at the entrance of my veins,
Where did you come from, and how did you come,
And how did you sweep my spirit?
Oh, one of God’s blessings upon me,
And a cloud of love and tenderness,
Oh, the most precious pearl in my hands.
Ah, how much my Lord has given me.
To My Beloved on New Year’s Eve
From the poems of the poet of women in love:
I transfer my love for you from year to year,
As a student moves his school assignments to a new notebook.
I gather your voice, your scent, your letters,
Your phone number, and your mailbox
And hang them in the closet of the new year.
I grant you a permanent residency in my heart.
I love you,
And I will never leave you alone on the paper of December 31.
I will carry you in my arms
And take you through all four seasons.
In winter, I will place a red woolen hat on your head
So you won’t feel cold.
In autumn, I will give you my only raincoat
So you won’t get wet.
In spring,
I will let you sleep on the fresh grass
And enjoy breakfast
With grasshoppers and sparrows.
In summer,
I will buy you a small fishing net
To catch shellfish,
Seabirds,
And fish with unknown addresses.
I love you,
And I don’t wish to tie you to the memories of past actions,
Or to the memories of departing trains.
You are the last train that travels at all hours
On the veins of my hands.
You are my final train,
And I am your last station.
I love you,
And I don’t want you to be bound to water or wind,
Or to the Gregorian or Hijri calendar,
Nor to the ebb and flow of tides,
Or to the hours of lunar eclipses.
I don’t care what the observatories say,
Or the lines of coffee cups.
Your eyes alone are the prophecy,
And they are responsible for the joy of this world.
I love you,
And I desire you to be woven into my time and my weather,
And to make you a star in my orbit.
I want you to take on the form of words,
And the space of paper,
So that when I publish a book and people read it,
They will find you like a rose within it.
I want you to take on the shape of my mouth,
So that when I speak,
People can find you bathing in my voice.
I want you to take the shape of my hand,
So that when I place it on the table,
People will find you resting inside it,
Like a butterfly in a child’s hand.
I do not master the rituals of congratulations,
I master love,
I master you;
He wanders above my skin
And you wander beneath my skin.
As for me,
I carry the streets and the sidewalks washed by rain
On my back and search for you.
Why do you conspire against me with the rain, when you know
That all my history with you is intertwined with the falling rain?
And that the only allergy I suffer from when I smell your scent
Is the allergy of rain?
Why do you conspire against me when you know
That the only book I read after you
Is the Book of Rain?
I love you.
This is the only profession I master,
And my friends and enemies envy me for it.
Before you, the sun, the mountains, and the forests
Were in a state of unemployment,
The language was idle, as were the birds.
So thank you for bringing me into school,
And thank you for teaching me the alphabet of love,
And thank you for agreeing to be my beloved.
The First Kiss
One of Nizar Qabbani’s most cherished poems is “The First Kiss,” where he writes:
Two years have passed, oh my beloved,
And the scent still lingers on my lips.
As if it hasn’t lost its sweetness,
And its aroma fills my sanctuary.
As your hair spun in my hands like a whirlwind,
And your lips are my firewood and my hearth.
Tell me, did you empty hell into my lips, or
Is it love for you to be my own flame?
When our lips intertwined warmly,
I glimpsed in her lips the specter of my tomb.
Legends tell that a kiss is a sin,
A red sin that you have made my sin lovely.
People say that lips are a playground,
So why did you devour my bones and arteries?
Oh, the sweetness of my first kiss, it sails with,
The aroma of my mountains, my forests, and my valleys.
And oh, sweet wine of tender lips, if
I remember it, my throat will drown!
What did you leave on my lower lip, and is it
Stamped in my burning mouth, or did it burn into my lungs?
Nothing remains for me but a thread of scent,
Calling you to return to your nest, my lady.
I Love You So Much
The poem “I Love You So Much” stands as one of Nizar Qabbani’s most beautiful declarations of love:
I love you so much,
And I know that the road to the impossible is long.
I know that you are the woman of my dreams,
And I have no substitute.
I know that the time for lovers has ended,
And beautiful words have died.
You are not just any woman; what can I say?
I love you so much.
I love you deeply, and I know I live in exile,
And you are also in exile, and between us,
Wind, lightning, clouds, thunder, snow, and fire.
I know that reaching you is tantamount to suicide,
And it delights me
To tear myself apart for you, oh dear one.
Even, if they gave me the choice, I would choose to love you for the second time,
Oh, you who wove your shirt from leaves of trees.
Oh, you who I protected with patience from drops of rain.
I love you so much and know that I travel in the sea of your eyes without certainty,
Leaving my mind and my opinions and running, running behind my insanity.
Oh, woman who holds my heart in her hands,
I beg you by God, do not abandon me.
Do not leave me,
For what would I be if you were not?
I love you,
I love you so much, and I adamantly refuse to pull away from the fire of your love.
Can a love-stricken soul ever withdraw?
And I don’t care whether I exit love alive,
And I don’t care if I leave it dead.