[Since I've been too busy to post a new blog these past several days, I hope you won't mind me using this opportunity to re-post an oldie but goodie.  I originally posted this on 18 July 2007, back when I had far fewer readers and hadn't quite mastered the art of inserting images into my blogs.  I'm adding two images to this repost, though I believe the poems of Qabbani exude all the images they need.]

As you know, for the past couple of days I've used my blog to celebrate one of my favorite 20th Century artists, the inimitable Salvador Dali.

Here's another: the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani.

As its best, I daresay Nizar's work can feel as powerful and evocative as Salvador's.  And that's saying a mouthful.

So here are three savory servings of Nizar Qabbani's gourmet writing:

["On entering the Sea"]

Love happened at last,
And we entered God's paradise,
Sliding
Under the skin of the water
Like fish.
We saw the precious pearls of the sea
And were amazed.
Love happened at last
Without intimidation...with symmetry of wish.
So I gave...and you gave
And we were fair.
It happened with marvelous ease
Like writing with jasmine water,
Like a spring flowing from the ground.

* * * * * * * * * *

My Love (Do not ask me)

Do not ask me, the name of my love
I fear for you, from the fragrance of perfume
contained in a bottle, if you smashed it,
drowning you, in spilled scent

By God, if you even croaked a letter,
Lilacs would pile up on the paths

Do not look for it here in my chest
I have left it to run with the sunset

You can see it in the laughter of doves
In the flutter of butterflies
In the ocean, in the breathing of dales
and in the song of every nightingale
in the tears of winter, when winter cries
in the giving of a generous cloud

Do not ask about his lips...as elegant as the sunset
And his eyes, a shore of purity
And his waist, the sway of a branch
Charms...which no book has contained
Nor described by a literate's feather
And his chest, his throat, enough for you

I won't breath his name, my lover...

* * * * * * * * * *

["When I Love You"]

When I love you
A new language springs up,
New cities, new countries discovered.
The hours breathe like puppies,
Wheat grows between the pages of books,
Birds fly from your eyes with tiding of honey,
Caravans ride from your breasts carrying Indian herbs,
The mangoes fall all around, the forests catch fire
And Nubian drums beat.

When I love you your breasts shake off their shame,
Turn into lightning and thunder, a sword, a sandy storm.
When I love you the Arab cities leap up and demonstrate
Against the ages of repression
And the ages
Of revenge against the laws of the tribe.
And I, when I love you,
March against ugliness,
Against the kings of salt,
Against the institutionalization of the desert.
And I shall continue to love you until the world flood arrives;
I shall continue to love you until the world flood arrives.

[a sample of Qabbani's writing in the original Arabic]


Find Nizar Qabbani works through my Amazon bookstore: