A Brief Love Letter

My darling, I have much to say
Where o precious one shall I begin ?

All that is in you is princely

O you who makes of my words through their meaning
Cocoons of silk

These are my songs and this is me

This short book contains us

Tomorrow when I return its pages

A lamp will lament

A bed will sing

Its letters from longing will turn green

Its commas be on the verge of flight

Do not say: why did this youth

Speak of me to the winding road and the stream

The almond tree and the tulip

So that the world escorts me wherever I go ?

Why did he sing these songs ?

Now there is no star

That is not perfumed with my fragrance

Tomorrow people will see me in his verse

A mouth the taste of wine, close-cropped hair

Ignore what people say

You will be great only through my great love

What would the world have been if we had not been

If your eyes had not been, what would the world have been?

~ Nizar Qabbani