Nizar Qabbani’s Poem
You will be surprised, my lady, if you knew
That I am unaware of the true meaning of love.
And you will be quite sad when you learn
That the poet is not an oracle of the unseen.
I am the last man on earth
To predict the states of the heart.
My lady,
When I love you,
I do not need the definite article.
I would be a mystery if I tried,
Can a sun penetrate a hole?
If you have a definition of poetry,
I possess a definition of love.
You will be astonished, my lady, to know
That I am extremely ignorant in the realm of interpretation.
If I have succeeded in my written expression of love,
What good is theorizing?
Does anyone believe that the king of passion,
The hunter of words,
The strongest among all competitors,
Does not know where and how
The rains of longing drenched us?
And why Hind brings us into the realm of poetry,
While Dadd does not?
Does anyone believe that the scholar of love,
And its reference point,
Can’t rightly interpret the verses?
You will be surprised, my lady, to learn
That I do not care for acquiring degrees,
And that I am a man not intimidated by the passage of years.
You will be even more astonished
When you learn that despite the gray hairs and the experience,
I never graduated from the University of Love.
I am just a student, my lady.
I am your student, my lady,
And I will remain so until my Lord permits me to be a seeker of knowledge.
I will always be a little bird
Learning in the school of dreams.
Adeeb Kamal El-Din’s Poem
O the empty space of my heart, O the thunder of my childhood’s delight,
O my ultimate pleasures, like a cloud manifesting a letter that loves the dress of my little princess in times of joy,
Offering her bouquets of wild roses, kissing her with silver rain,
Taking her to the vast swing amidst the gardens of green as much as possible in
A cup of everlasting light, dragging her to the wind and severely challenging time,
Sketching her ambiguous portrait with threads of loneliness and blue,
From the dawn of lips, blending the arcs of love with the fabric of her joy,
Igniting her essence to lift her higher while soaring, amazed, ecstatic with profound meaning.
You are with me, your hand in my hand, your eyes in my eyes, as the night moans and opens
Its gaze far away to the utmost. O the childhood of my limbs and the tenderness of my song, until
The meaning enters into the absurd, O connection of my ultimate pleasures:
O my delights, you tempest of waves, the swing turned secretly within us
And we fell into black and red, in the bitter death of complete scandals
And jars shattered in the festival of deprivation and the murder of my grand childhood sun.
The earth did not take us to her. The wind did not carry us, and your hand was lost in the sea
And mine. My body close to you and near to you yet cannot hold it, and we fell into
The darkness amidst the emptiness of ‘F,’ the ignorance of ‘R,’ and the cruelty of ‘A,’ the negligence of ‘GH.’
Separation cast us far, further than high and close to what is low,
We lost as two children in an angry wolf’s market, our tears trembling in the night,
In mud, in the exposing body, and in the asphyxiated cities, until words of death appeared in our bodies
And we died.
Badr Shakir al-Sayyab’s Poem
One day, a passerby asked me
About my enchantment and my charming girl.
She did not know I was a poet,
Inspired by the beauty of purity.
I do not love a capricious beloved,
Rather, I adore entrancing eyes,
And a figure so graceful that overwhelms me,
Lost in a reverie behind my spirit.
And loyalty, I could never deny.
Do you think a branch of blooming can deny?
She asked me as the highlands decorated
With dawn and dreams blooming.
I wish she knew that I am here,
A poet who must have a poetess.
I said, O sister, do not inquire;
I am that boy who loves the rare one.
<h2:Mohammad Darwish's Poem
On the ruins, we were greeted
And our faces on the sand,
If the summer winds blew
We would delicately open our handkerchiefs,
Gently… gently.
And we disappeared, wrapped in two songs, like captives,
Evading the drop of dew.
Come once more into my thoughts,
O my sister.
For the darkest moments of night
Strip me of colors and shadows
And safeguard me from humiliation.
In your eyes, my old moon,
My roots are pulled
To slumber bluer
Under the sun… and the palm trees,
Far from the darkness of exile…
Close to my family’s refuge.
I longed for childhood in you
Since the spring birds took flight
While the trees were stripped bare.
And your voice was, once upon a time,
Coming
From wells sometimes
And perhaps sprinkled by rain,
Pure like this, like fire,
Like the trees… like verses pouring down.
Come back,
There was something in your eyes that I craved
And I waited for you.
Hold me closely to your shoulders,
Hold me tightly as a prisoner,
Forgive me from within.
I longed for childhood in you
Since the spring birds took flight,
While the trees were stripped bare.
And we cross the path,
Bound…
As if we were captives,
Whose hand, I wonder, was it:
Mine, or yours,
Grasping pain
From the other?
And as was her habit,
She did not release our embrace,
Neither in my chest nor in yours…
The legacy of memory,
As if we were crossing paths,
Like everyone else,
If they glanced
They felt no longing
Nor regret,
Nor reproach.
And we dive into the crowd
To buy our small belongings,
And we left the night
Nothing but ashes that reminded us of the embers
And something in my veins
Calls me
To sip from your hand and fade away in memory.
Step down one time, O star,
And walk on our fingertips
Without tiring.
And when I sipped from your lips
The water of the mulberry,
Came close and drank,
And when I wrote about your eyes
Every word I penned spilled
And we shared our pillow…
And our coffee.
And when you left..
You didn’t disappear.
I might have become forgotten
For you
Like a cloud in the wind
Descending to the west…
But whenever I tried
To forget you,
A star settled upon my hand,
To your glory,
Soaring in my imagination
From your echo…
The prison, the fetters.
I see you lean
In a duvet
Racing… running
And I feel you in the cold nights
A sun
In my blood singing.
I call you childhood,
The breast stretches before me.
I call you spring.
The grasses and flowers rise.
I call you the sky,
And the rains and thunder respond.
To you, glory,
For my joy in my confusion
Knows no bounds
And there is no vow in our meeting.
To you… glory,
And we understood the evening…
And the sun
Was combing its hair in the sea,
And the final kiss lands
On my eyes like embers.
Take the winds from me
And kiss me
For the last time in life.
And the morning gripped me,
And the sun
Was taming its hair in the east,
With henna and joy.
And a ticket to the palace of the captive,
Take the songs from me
And remember me…
Like a flash of lightning
And the evening grasped me
And the bells bellied
For the procession of the beautiful captive,
And my heart was cold as diamonds,
And my dreams were boxes at the port.
Take the spring from me and bid farewell.