When he touched her
a window onto a summer field
opened in her heart
This longing within…
a cup overflowing
with the wine of poetry
قُبلَتَهُ على فَمِها
السماءُ التي منها
يَنبَلِجُ الفَجر
His kiss on her lips
the sky from which
the dawn breaks
I touched her
the way a poem begins
in a poet’s heart
Not only the city’s hum…
the rain strokes to a quiet
the noise in my heart
Touched by his fingers
it flowers…
the rose of her skin
Sous ses doigts fleurit
la rose de sa peau
تحت أصابِعِهِ يُزهِرْ
وردُ بَشَرَتِها
لوَجهِها بين يديّ
وهجُ الشمسِ
عند المَغيب
The sun at twilight…
the glow of her face
between his hands
Last days of summer,
the damp autumn mists
cover the mountains;
we light a fire and sit,
an owl hoots
deep in the valley;
the potatoes roast,
wine smears our lips,
we are warm, together,
as the clouds billow lower
enveloping us, weaving
our story into the one
bursting all around.
في أعماقها
ما زالت تتذكر جريان النهر
عندما أحبّها
وحيداً أجول العالم
لبيتي سطحٌ
من ريحٍ ونجوم
A wanderer I am…
my home is only
a roof of stars and wind
قلبيَ الوحيد
عصفورٌ إسودّ ريشُهُ
معِ الزمن
This prayer…
burning whispers
between our lips
Wherever he goes
he carries
her fragrance in his heart
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.
أجلُسُ وحيداً معكِ ولو كانَ بيننا ألفُ شخضٍ وشخص.
~
You pull me up when the whole world is pulling me down, and that is enough.
~
Rien ne réchauffe sans amour.
~
نحنُ دائماً مُغَلَفين بِأنفُسِنا.
~
قليل من الشعر ليروي عطش الليل.
~
Everyday
life flows a little more
into my veins
at the thought of touching you…
this life becomes fire
and has the name of poetry
~
In my dreams I wander
solitary as the moon,
only her eyes call me on and on
to hidden horizons,
to poetry, to wine,
to madness,
to a love so great
it tears open
the whole sky.
~
Though I come
with a laden heart,
one moment with you
empties me
of all my burdens.
~
Light touching her skin
A halo of poetry
~
When I touch you
even in thought
I am relieved
from that dreadful weight
pressing on my chest
~
Stripped bare
by this music;
a leaf
left trembling
in the passing wind.
~
Between his hands
her body swayed…
a violin aching
to weep
the sweetest music
~
The kiss he plucked from her mouth
a ripe fruit, red and bitter sweet,
filled with so much longing that
a tremor traveled between them
shaking the old fault lines and roots
and shaping them anew,
forged along the outlines
of their merging bodies.
كل ضجيج العالم يتلاشى عندما أسمع صوتك.
~
هي قصيدةٌ مكتوبةٌ بلغة
أرغبُ أن أُمضي حياتي
وأنا أُترجمها
~
في هذا العالم المجنون
يبقى حُبُنا ملاذُنا الآمِن،
فيهِ نكون نوعاً آخَرَ من الجنون،
فيهِ نكون أنا أنا وأنتِ أنتِ.
~
أكتبُ
كأنّ قصيدتي تتلمَّس
دفءَ بَشَرَتِها
~
قُبلتَها
كلما مرّ لساني على شفتي،
أحسستُ بطعمها،
نبيذٌ أحمر، نارٌ، شعر،
كأن روحي قد ثملت
وهي تشرب من روحها.
This warmth between us
the knitted verse of poetry
~
Life happens while you wait
for a lover to ease the knot of fate
~
What am I? — Just a shadow passing in the rain.
~
If someone asked me
what proof have I got
that I really lived,
I’d only have my poetry.
~
Wounded by this longing,
I write poetry.
~
Water washes the skin but rain cleanses the soul.
~
Barefoot
she walks in my dreams
spilling moonlight
from her dark hair,
her breath
a candle whispering
the softest intimacy.
~
Watching her sleep,
to the candle’s light
he weaves his breath
and covers her gently.
Cruising into old age,
reading books
and writing poetry.
~
With one foot in the grave
she sits smiling at me…
my mother
~
هذا المطر
في عتمةِ الليل عاشِقَين
يُقَبِلان بَعضَهُما
~
This rain…
in the dark night two lovers
passionately kissing
~
كقمرٍ في الماء
ترتَجِف
وأنا أُقَبِلُها
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.
Loving each other meant transforming into the best versions of ourselves we could ever be; it meant finding, through each other, the secret source of joy in our own hearts; it meant opening up and flowing, but also being contained and cradled; it meant traveling away and going, but always connected by a hidden thread, and always under a watchful and caring eye. Love is being in becoming, always from the central place in our own hearts.
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.
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.
She didn’t feel
the frost on her skin
until it melted
under the warmth
of his fingertips
~
مشّطتُ شعرها على مهل
وقبّلت الندى على كتفيها
ثم جلست بينما استلقت هيَ
وأمسكتُ القلم وسال الشعر
حبرا على بشرتها
~
Things break,
people die,
friends and lovers
go into the night
and return no more.
من كل شيء
تعرّت
وارتدت ما حاكه لها
من نفسه
وضوء القمر
Relished slowly
with yearning lips
the wine I poured
into the hollows
of her collarbones
~
Today the wind
comes to tell me
of her deep longing,
the woman whose breath
I feel in my bones.
Between his hands
her yearning body
became an altar
offering its wine
to the tremor of his lips
~
Night over the woods –
alone
in their cabin,
her face buried
in the pit of his neck.
My eyes
opening them slowly
to my lover’s kiss –
No! It was just the roll
of distant thunder!
~
Her kiss
thunders in my head;
as it fades
it leaves my heart
drenched in warm rain.
Night falls,
her dark hair in rivulets
fills its lonesome corners;
the candle of her breath
ignites somewhere
inside the vast darkness,
casting a play of shadows
against the spinning walls;
a cloistered world,
an intimate world
of poetry and wine
and our lips
and our naked bodies
tangled and merging
somewhere deep inside.
Rooted in Love 