When I love a woman
all the trees
run barefoot toward me . . .

translated by Lena Jayyusi & Christopher Middleton

You want a testimony of love from me
Signed in big letters?
I declare that you are
The last among women.
But why the testimony? Tell me,
Can the sea guarantee forever
The boundaries of an island?

translated by Lena Jayyusi & Jack Collom

Your love taught me how love
changes the map of ages
taught me that when I love
the earth stops turning.

translated by Lena Jayyusi & Christopher Middleton

I wrote the name of the one I loved
On the wind.
I wrote the name of the one I loved
On the water.
But the wind is a bad listener,
The water does not remember names.

translated by Bassam K. Frangieh & Clementina R. Brown

Take all the books
That I read in my childhood,
Take all my school notebooks,
Take the chalk
The pens,
And the blackboards,
But teach me a new word
To hang like an earring
On my lover’s ear.

I want new fingers
To write in a new way,
Like high masts of ships,
Long like a giraffe’s neck
So I can tailor for my beloved
A garment of poetry.

I want to make you a unique alphabet.
In it I want
The rhythm of the rain,
The dust of the moon,
The sadness of the grey clouds,
The pain of the fallen willow leaves
Under the wheels of autumn.

translated by Bassam K. Frangieh & Clementina R. Brown

When I travel into your eyes
I ride a magic carpet
Lifted by violet and rose clouds
Rotating like the earth
In your eyes.

translated by Bassam K. Frangieh & Clementina R. Brown

When rain fell on both of us
Thousands of plants
Grew on our coats.
After you left
Rain began to fall on me alone
But on my coat nothing grew.

translated by Bassam K. Frangieh & Clementina R. Brown

My lover asks me:
“What is the difference between me and the sky?”
The difference, my love,
Is that when you laugh,
I forget about the sky.

translated by Bassam K. Frangieh & Clementina R. Brown