يا عاشقًا

O Lover

Out of that three-way exchange, I wrote this poem the same night:

1. O lover with your muddled mind,
   reeling, and all your strings entwined,
2. whom a fevered ache has scorched within his heart
   like the creeping sting of fire!
3. What ails your heart, that, hurt by parting, in its love
   it deals so harshly with the lyre?
4. You blame the parting; yet passion made you drink
   grief in its tears before the homes¹ were parted wide.
5. You grumble at love when it blows soft and mild,
   light as the breeze: then what of the whirlwind?
6. You're standing on the nearer shore, and yet
   you moan about its waves! Have you ever put to sea?
7. Plunge into the floods of its seas, aboard its ship,
   until you feel the full force of its tide.
8. Grow drunk² upon the wine of its majesty, and you'll find
   the whole world drunk with it, so splendid is that wine.
9. I promise you: were you once drunk upon its liquor,
   you'd quite forget the tavern's air, and the man who sells the wine.
10. Love's not some foolish whim that flares, then disappears,
    roused and gone at the call of whatever dazzles the eye.
11. Love is no daily paper, where we read
    whichever items of the news delight.
12. Love is no Yemeni coffee³, sipped
    just after dawn, time after time.
13. Love is not blind⁴, as we were told;
    it has clear sight, and brings us where the secrets lie.
14. Were it not for love, the eyes set in our skulls
    would never have possessed the power of sight.
15. Were it not for love, eyes would not shape their languages
    out of a glance's drunkenness⁵, coursing through the joints.
16. The language of the eyes, without a whisper, has left
    all letters helpless, weaving a thousand dialogues.
17. The language of love, in its silence, has explained
    to us the dream of maidens by the moons' bright light.
18. Were it not for love, no tears of longing would pour down
    for a distant home, or grief that memory calls to mind.
19. Were it not for love, no fragrance would pervade its garden
    to tell the tale⁶ of passion that the flowers hide.
20. Were it not for love, the one who longs would never send,
    out of his burning, fragrance on the breeze that journeys through the night.
21. Were it not for love, you'd never find the wastelands lovely
    and green, once the rains have fallen from the sky.
22. Were it not for love, you'd never see the world arrayed
    in the robe of spring, in the splendour of its blooms and light⁷.
23. Were it not for love, no brook would run, nor would a bough,
    bowed low with ripened fruit, sway in delight.
24. Love is the making of the arts, translating
    virgin meanings out of the passion of virgins⁸.
25. A king, crowned on the throne of hearts,
    to whom all pledge allegiance⁹, with no choice of any kind.
26. Love is the inspiration of souls, their revelation;
    their melodies sing out along with the birds' choir.
27. Love is the secret of the universe, the source of all its beauty,
    a spring of tenderness and selflessness.
28. Love is the elixir of life, and yet its essence
    stays hidden from all fancies and all eyes.
29. Love is a melody sealed like a talisman in all that is;
    its meaning courses through all the planets.
30. Love is a path through life, and a goal:
    whoever attains it throws the traveller's staff¹⁰ aside.

Mombasa, Kenya, 19 July 1994

English translation prepared by artificial intelligence and reviewed against the Arabic for accuracy of meaning and rhetoric.