A Poem of Love in the Dark
By Ahmed Abdel-Maati:
Do I love you? My eyes say I do.
The tone of my voice affirms it,
As does my long silence.
All the friends who have seen me say, “I love!”
And yet, you still do not know!
…
I love you… when my smile blossoms,
Like a wanderer crossing a path for the first time,
And when I greet you, then hurry away,
To enter a room,
And when you say to me… “Recite poetry!”
I recite, without looking back, fearing the meeting of our eyes.
For meeting eyes through poetry opens a door for a caged bird,
I fear for it if it ever becomes free,
I fear for it if it lands upon your hands,
So I kept it away from both!
…
But in the evening, I confess,
I walk through the corridors of serenity
And open the doors of my heart,
Releasing my bird,
I converse with the city’s light
As it dances beneath the bridges.
I say to it… O light, tell my heart, for I love!
I ask it… O companion of ships and travelers, answer me:
Why does the lover walk alone?
Why do my arms wander through the bushes without an embrace?!
And the light and shadow amaze me,
I feel as though I am part shadow and part light.
I sense the city entering my heart,
As if words are spoken, and people walk beside me.
So I tell them about my beloved.
…
My beloved came from the countryside,
As I once did, my beloved has arrived.
The wind cast us upon the shore, hungry and bare;
I fed him a piece of my heart,
And combed his hair,
My eyes became mirrors;
I dressed him in a golden dream, and we said, “Let’s walk,”
For the goodness of life is abundant.
Paths diverge; I take one, he takes another,
Yet, we meet in the evening.
So look at my beloved’s face,
And I remain speechless.
…
My beloved came from the countryside.
And I tell them about you until,
The moon lays down its face upon the west,
And the wind settles within the heart of the tree.
And when I return, I tell myself,
Tomorrow, I will tell her everything!
A Poem: The Last Love Message
By Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Wafi:
Stay a moment, put aside the hurt and blame,
And listen to the last bird’s song of love.
Here are my sorrows, I hope to scatter them
Across the lines; do not find fault with the anger.
Into the ears of this darkness, I cast my thoughts,
And thought that love had shaped them into art.
I am a mirage, and my love is a raincloud,
Not blocking the sun, nor gathering heavy gray.
I am tears and my love is a kohl-stained eye;
If tears fell, the kohl would flow and spill.
I am a sail, and my heart a restless raft,
I am song, yet my ear knows not the melody.
O tear in the eyes of the night that asks me
About longing… about yesterday that has gone.
About the birds, about the blooming meadow,
About the life that smiled, about the poetry that tired.
Do not scold me; our love was nothing
But a glimmer of dreams, unsettled.
Did we leave behind an echo in the ears of our present
To revive the night or clear the noise?!
No, I see nothing in our bags, my dear,
If we stand today, waiting.
You and I are a rose without fragrance too.
Even the butterfly on its cheeks is crying..!
Seconds of darkness ride on their feet,
And time still weighs down my eyelids.
And you, O motionless hour, played
With my thoughts and left without giving a reason.
What do you want from me? My journey is tiring,
A traveler who is still lost in love.
I sell my song in the forest of sorrows,
And buy wood for the remnants of our fire.
Until I returned, with my breaths troubled,
Sad and the wall of despair stands tall.
And love has not offered a price for my journey
Except for ashes, so should we live on what they gave?!
If one day you gaze, O tormentor of mine,
At these letters that have known no lie,
For they are but an hour of my thoughts that fell,
I lost them while I sought an escape.
Please keep them, for perhaps love will forget them,
In my heart (as the last letter in love was written).
A Poem: Love Declaration
By Saleh Al-Shaher:
I declared my love for you and my choice,
I am confident of my success.
So do not think… do not rage,
And do not doubt… do not argue.
Your destined fate is to be
With me in my paradise and my fire.
If you escape from me, you will find loss,
For you are my star, and in my orbit.
Without me, you have no life,
Without fragrance, without fruits.
Love… if you knew it… is a spring
Smiling like the sunrise.
Like the star… like the fragrance… like dreams,
Like grass in the valleys and the pastures.
And you, my beloved, are my wishes,
More beautiful than what I imagined,
More precious than the pearls of the seas.
More delicate than the morning dew… more desirable
Than the scent of flowers in (March).
You amaze me in every way,
So how can I hide my wonder from you?
With you, I’ve become… so choose my path,
Selecting anew, decide my fate.
And accept my love, for indeed my love
Is an ocean… with no shore!
A heart that loves without conditions,
This is life, in summary.
A Poem of Grateful Love
By Sayyid Qutb:
If I don’t love you for your radiance and light,
For the beauty of your face, fresh in life.
And for the charm of your spirit as it steals away
From me, and I follow it like a beguiled fool.
When you encapsulated beauty and manifested,
You with it were a sorceress in expression.
When you granted, and what you granted from love
To the universe, or revived the buried.
If I do not love you with a bewitched love,
Nor the love of a captive, then it is grateful love.
A love that revived within me life
From what you have of abundant grace.
And granted it the crown of life, while it was
Living like a hired hand.
And bestowed upon it a past after its loss,
And protected its future from the forbidden.
A love in which you shone in its consciousness,
Clearing all that was hidden from view.
You breathed into its aspirations and it blazed bright,
And it silenced every banned and dangerous voice.
Or I may love you with the love of one who was guided,
A law that lights up its path with every feeling.
A poem that gathers the flowers of life,
And from beauty, scents it with fragrance.
And from light, granted it its hopes,
And from dew, a dream as pure as a child’s face.
And revived it with the inspiration of life and its art,
Revealing it within its treasured beauty.
Shall I not love you? It is indeed a duty,
The love of someone grateful to a gracious giver.
A Poem of Ancient Love
By Bilind Al-Haidari:
Do you remember…?
You blushed at what you recall.
As for me,
I laughed… I laughed at what you remember.
We were young,
And perhaps we did not realize how young we were.
Do you remember,
The day that died in the mournful horizon?
As it had been accustomed for years,
There was anticipation.
And the train arrived,
And many hands shook.
Many hands shook,
Except for mine.
Do you remember… except for mine…
It was ready for the most beautiful meeting,
But you passed by,
You passed by; you didn’t look back.
You didn’t sing my hidden secret,
And laughed like everyone else.
As for me,
I was embarrassed,
Embarrassed by my humiliating love.
Do you remember…?
And blushing at what you recall.
As for me,
I laughed… I laughed at what you remember.