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In the words of Nizar Qabbani, addressing his beloved:
I have given you a choice, so make it
Between dying on my chest…
Or upon the pages of my poetry…
Choose love… or the absence of love
For cowardice lies in failing to choose…
There is no middle ground
Between paradise and hell…
Throw away your papers entirely…
And I will accept any decision…
Speak. React. Explode
Do not remain like a nail…
I cannot endure forever
Like a straw in the rain…
Decide your fate between two
And how fierce my fates are…
You are weary and afraid
And my journey is exceedingly long…
Dive into the sea or distance yourself
No ocean exists without turbulence…
Love is a grand confrontation
Sailing against the current…
It is tough, filled with agony and tears
And departures among the moons…
Your timidity kills me, oh woman
Amusing yourself behind the curtain…
I do not believe in love
That lacks the rebellious spirit of revolutionaries…
It does not break down every barrier
Nor strikes like a hurricane…
Oh, if your love could engulf me
Lift me away like a tempest…
I have given you a choice, so make it
Between dying on my chest
Or upon the pages of my poetry…
There is no middle ground
Between paradise and hell…
Wudu with the Water of Love and Jasmine
He once said in Damascus:
This time, my voice springs from Damascus.
It emerges from the house of my mother and father.
In Shahba, the geography of my body transforms.
My blood cells turn green.
My alphabet becomes green.
In Shahba, a new mouth sprouts for me
And a new voice emerges for my sound…
My fingers become
A tribe of fingers…
I return to Damascus
Riding the clouds
On the most beautiful horses in the world
The horse of love…
And the horse of poetry…
I return after sixty years
To search for my umbilical cord,
And for the Damascus barber who circumcised me,
And for the midwife who cast me into the basin beneath the bed
And accepted from my father a gold lira
Then left our house…
On that day in March of 1923
With her hands stained with the blood of poetry…
From the direction of (Bab al-Barid).
Carrying with me,
Ten tons of love letters
I had sent in the first century of the Hijra
But they never reached the beloved’s address
Or perhaps were shredded by the censor’s scissors…
Thus, I decided to carry my mail on my shoulder
In hopes that the one I loved…
Who was a student in high school
Fifteen centuries ago
Still fails her exams
In solidarity with Layla al-Amriyyah,
And Mary Magdalene,
And Rabi’a al-Adawiyya,
And all those tormented by love… in this third world.
Or perhaps the censor who used to assassinate my letters
Has been transferred to the Department of Vehicle Registration
Or placed into a literacy school
Or married someone who read my letters
Impersonating my name…
And my signature…
And the audacity of my poems…
I return to the womb where I was formed…
And to the first woman who taught me
The geography of love…
And the geography of women…
I return…
After my pieces have scattered across all continents
And my cough has echoed in every hotel
For after my mother’s sheets scented with laurel soap,
I found no bed to sleep on…
And after the bride of olive oil and thyme
She would wrap for me,
No bride in the world pleases me anymore…
And after the quince jam she made by hand
I am no longer eager for the morning meal…
And after the mulberry juice she used to press
No wine can intoxicate me now…
I enter the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque
Greet each person within it
With a tile… a tile
A dove… a dove
I stroll through the orchards of the Kufi script
And pick beautiful flowers from the words of God…
And I hear with my eyes the sound of the mosaics…
And the music of the agate fountains…
A state of trance and ecstasy takes hold of me,
So I ascend the steps of the first minaret I encounter
Crying out:
“Hasten to jasmine.”
“Hasten to jasmine.”
I return to you
Soaked in the rain of my longing
Returning… to fill my pockets
Returning to my homeland.
For no fountains of Versailles
Could replace (Café al-Nufrah)…
No spice market in Paris
Could replace (Souq al-Jum’ah)…
No Buckingham Palace in London
Could replace (Palace al-Azem)…
No doves in St. Mark’s Square in Venice
More blessed than the doves of the Umayyad Mosque…
Nor Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides
More majestic than the grave of Saladin…
Some may accuse me…
Of returning to swim in the seas of romance…
I do not reject the accusation.
For as fish have their territorial waters,
So too do poems have their territorial waters.
And I – like any fish writing poetry –
Do not wish to drown…
I wander through the narrow alleys of Damascus.
The hazel eyes awaken, peeking from behind the windows…
And greet me…
The stars adorn themselves with their golden bracelets…
Doves descend from their perches…
And greet me…
The clean Syrian cats emerge
Born with us…
And grew up with us…
And married with us…
To greet me…
She puts on a little makeup on her face…
Like all women…
She makes me a delicious coffee.
And introduces me to her children… her sons-in-law… and her grandchildren…
And tells me that her oldest child…
Will graduate this year as a doctor from the University of Damascus…
And that her youngest daughter married an Arab prince
And traveled with him to the Gulf…
A tear rolls down my eye…
And I request to take my leave…
Content for the family tree…
And the future of the generations…
To a Resort
He spoke of love:
Are you sitting on the curve?
Her feet is this position…
The journeys of July have returned, and so have we
To plunder a resting vine…
To steal figs from the field at dawn
To spot a stray bird
To weave the clouds of my land into a ribbon
That wraps your flowing hair
To wash your feet, my child
In the cold springs of her waters…
Heavenly-eyed… my resort
On the shoulder of the kneeling village…
I love you in the play of sheep’s milk
And in the frolic of the climbing goat…
In the gatherings of cypress and oak
In every vigorous willow
And in a snippet of my mountains’ songs
A villager sings it on her way back
Dear friend, the birds have returned
To peck from the harvester’s pouch
I love you, purer than snow at heart
And cleaner than the beads of the worshipper…
I dreamed of the rush of this boy
As she bore her child…
I love you… a whirlwind of youth
At twenty, unaware of the outcome
Years have gathered on the horizon…
So strike… even if just once…