I Write to You

I write to you
the way a bird
feels the wind
gliding under his wings,
the way the fire crackles
with passionate heat
to consume ever wildly,
the way a root
with infinite patience
descends into the dark;
I write to you
the way the rain
kisses the earth
after a long summer,
the way a monk
prays to God
in the solitude of his cell;
I write to you the way
wine ferments in darkness
and wheat grows gold
in the summer sun,
the way dawn fills the heart
with the still clarity of its light.
I write to you because I love you
and you have turned my life
into a journey of love.

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Writing as Worship

I spill my soul
into the poem
and it takes the shape
of her body,
shines with the light
of her face.

My poem is a journey
winding amid the white hills
of her grace.

I write as if to glimpse
beyond the veil that hides
her endless mystery.

I write because writing
is a form of worship.

The Ultimate Gift

In a city of constant noise
you were the silent beauty
which presence lifted me
into a higher realm of harmony,
who opened up higher worlds for me,
filled me up with passion
and gave me the ultimate gift,
the kiss of poetry.

Things Invisible

There are things invisible
whose presence is known only
by the way they affect others
such as the wind passing through
or kindness for no reason given
or the way your beauty
makes light glow around your skin
or the way my love bends the world
in a hymn song for you

Kissing Her Neck

Like fresh morning dew
my kisses sink into her neck,
from her chin down
to the hollow above her chest,
going around to her collarbones,
then to her nape at the back
as I lift her dark hair,
falling slowly to the expanse
between her shoulder blades…

…my kisses circle her neck
like a Sufi turns
ecstatic and feverish,
lost in prayer
as with each turn
he falls deeper
lost in God.

Walking To You

Walking to you
I lose count of the distance
as miles laps
into endless miles,
I lose count of the time
as days swiftly turn
to months, to years,
everything becomes
background and echo
and only you remain,
you, love, the focal point
around which all time and space
spin and converge,
you, the expansion in my heart,
giving my life
freedom and meaning,
filling each moment
with peace and ecstasy,
teaching me to live this poetry…

Pierre Mhanna

When I Am Tired

When I am tired
your voice whispers
softly in my ear,
come, we have places to go
poems to write
and people to meet,
come, the mountains call
the stars above
and the wandering winds,
come, life is still full
of magnificent offerings
wine to spill
and wild roses to kiss,
come, come, come…

Another Way of Being

As though life
is a fog,
a fading dream,
vanishing as we reach
to touch it,
images shivering in the water,
flowing away, already gone
when barely seen.

We live in the afterglow
of things that were,
eclipsed before being
fully embodied,
things filled with decay
even as they flourished,
things that are always leaving
only to lead us on and on
to a nowhere that exists
only in our hearts.

The heaviest love
is weightless and impotent.
The strongest attachments
are thin as the wind.

In this vast, endless
openness,
I pray, teach me
surrender,
let me become love. The only journey is the one within,
all else is illusory.

Lost in the Wild

Away from the world,
I long to live in a little cabin
lost in the wild,
there to listen
to the heartbeat of the world,
to wait for the sunset and the dawn,
to be found by the forest,
to read and to write
not as a hermit,
but as a man who has come
to the essence of things.

The Poet & God

Poetry…
exchanging words
for a moment with God;
but, by then, words
are no longer words
but something else,
words emptied of themselves
and filled with silence,
words as vessels for the spirit,
words as boats
that carry one over
on wings of spirit
to that other realm,
which is in this realm,
inside.

But the poet is not a priest,
no, he is a messenger,
and for that he pays
the utmost price;
he feels himself torn
as he approaches the moment,
present and open to the utmost,
ready, burning for revelation,
aching to become nothing else
than his face seen in the face of God;
his face, as such, is a mirror
in which the inner light
of the world reflects,
and which tears him constantly
in an eternal act of becoming;
he is the river
that knows no beginning or end,
and he ends as he begins,
in God.

What the priest knows from the outside
the poet lives,
his confirmation is his life;
the poet as a mirror
for the invisible
for which he gladly pays
with his life.

Love Desired

The passing years
knitted our lives
closer and closer
until we became
woven together
into a single fabric,
our beings emitting
a deeply harmonious music
as they merged over and over
with ever increasing intensity,
enlarging our love,
this world between us,
this infinitely warm nest,
to fill the whole sky,
mirroring each other
ever so truthfully,
ever so nakedly,
in the still water of our silence,
our shared and beating heart.

عن الشعر والحب

أقرأ قصائدي القديمة
لأجد فتات النساء
اللواتي أحببتهنّ يوماً
.واللواتي اختفين في الحقول
قصائدي كلها قصيدة واحدة
مرسومة كالوشم
،على بشرة المرأة الوحيدة
.والتي تختصر في كيانها كل النساء
قصيدتي انشودة مطر
،في حقل جسدها
قمر عالق
.في شعرها الأسود

Longing for Your Touch

Long ago
I weaved you as a myth
in the secret center
of my own heart;
now, every little thing
returns me to you,
the moon in the window,
the burning candle,
the blue light at dawn,
and I always find myself
caught in the stillness
thinking of you,
longing for your touch.

Beyond Words – this union with You

When I think of you
I come near
to something unsayable;
when I try to say it
I sink in the afterglow
of a deep prayer;
quietness opens
a door in my heart
and there you are,
a mystic sunk
in intimate conversation,
a flame kept alive
by the grace of love.

These Poems

These poems, I write them
so I would not forget
how you taste like,
how you smell,
how simply seeing you
fills my heart with light.

These poems are doors
I keep going through,
doors opening to rooms
filled with endless skies,
rooms where you have just left
as I walked in
leaving only your scent
and a letter or two.

These poems remind me
of the stain of your lipstick
on the wine glass from that night
that we laughed and shared our silence
and looked into each other’s eyes
and knew.

These poems are my heartbeats
caught in a capsule
and carried by the waves
always towards you,
but you are the sea
and you are the waves
and the shore beyond is you.

These poems always say
one and the same thing,
“there is no place left in me
for being and non-being,
I am all-being, in you.”

These poems always say the same thing
though each time
a little stronger and more deeply,
these poems say, “I love you.”

These Poems

These poems I write
are birds I send away
over mountains and fields,
through white clouds
and over distant seas,
so that, one dawn of day,
they might return
and tap at my window,
fill my heart with their song
having seen your beautiful face.

Landscape

As I hold my pen
her skin under my fingers
stretches into a landscape,
each word I write
spins a little vortex,
a turning Sufi, a small flower,
all spreading across her skin,
spreading like a fire,
dripping into her soul
and coursing deep down,
filling her with more love
than she can understand,
with unbearable gentleness
opening her wide,
opening her to God,
opening her to the sky.

One by one I kiss
the flowers of her skin,
then look into her eyes.

This Conversation

We do not know each other
yet the poem
has always connected us;
in a world of change
this poetry ebbing and flowing
between our hearts
is the only constant,
carrying secret messages
between our souls.

You and me
we’ve always had this conversation,
wordless and mystical,
formless and flowing with pure essence;
without beginning or end
we’ve always been wrapped
around each other,
and this pain that wounds our souls
is the evidence of the place
where we enter each other.

Now, in silence,
I send you this word
to travel on the wind
and find your lips.

Your Name

Everything begins
as I utter your name,
yet it is a name
that cannot be pronounced
as it is not made of letters –
it is an inner name,
one that dwells inside
the prayer, the music, the art,
it is an inner vessel,
to utter it is to feel
an opening in the heart
too immense to contain,
a sky and a sea blooming inside.

Adam and Eva

Like wine in a cellar
this art of touching her
is something that has brewed
for a lifetime within me;
now and then it comes out
as poetry,
now and then
when it cannot be contained
and its flashes
flood through my veins
and its wave carries me
to the wood where we always met
in the deepest recesses of my memory.

I remember to come back
to the future where we are
and I complete the circle
as I write to you know
this love that is within me.