Love and Death 1 From the cities of magic and the caves: Waddah arises, Crowned by the moon of death and the fire of a shooting star, Falling into the desert, Carried like an orange nightingale By the ogress with the caravans To Syria. A red feather Is blown into the air by a magician He wrote a charm on it For the ladies of the cities of the wind The words of the stones falling in the wells, The dances of fire Are blown into the chamber of the caliph Becoming sometimes a poem, Sometimes a virgin pearl Falling at the feet of Waddah Who carries it to bed, A woman crying with desire Making love with the night and the crazy light of the moon Raving, singing, ending from where she did not begin, Regaining Rediscovering on the bed her virginity, Ashamed of the night And the crazy light of the moon She opens her eyes on the ashes of the fire of a shooting star Falling on the desert And a red feather Is blown into the air by the magician Sometimes turning into a gazelle With horns made of gold Sometimes into a priestess practicing seduction And the game of the end In the harem of the caliph His night is haunted by ghosts and boredom. II I did not find salvation in love, but I found God. III I kissed my mistress on the carpet of light I sang a poem for her I granted her the sun of Bukhara, The fields of wheat in Iraq, The Atlas moon and the spring in Arwad I granted her the throne of Solomon, The fire of the night in the desert, And the gold of the waves in the seas Upon her lips I printed my love For all the beautiful women of the world, And the kisses of the lovers Within her I sowed A child from the people And from the dynasty of the phoenix. IV Where do these ghosts come from? While you slept in her bed 0 Waddah, Was it the windows of the palace? Or perhaps the guardians of the walls Did not close the doors? V In my sleep: I saw the river of death on your breast, Forcing its current in the flesh of the silence A hunting dog bites your breast As the quail begin their migration Following the orbit of human exile in the world and things A face of a palace slave Emerges from my eyes and from the mirror of this dawn In my sleep I saw him kissing your breasts, Lying naked over the bed of roses Smiling for the future VVI Where are these ghosts from? While you were sleeping in her bed, O Waddab Perhaps it was the informer who relieved you Perhaps it was the caliph who sent after you The slave, the hunting dog, and the nightmare. VVII Before it came to be in the books, In the novels and in the poems, Othello already existed. The scorpions of jealousy bit him, O Waddah! Before it came to be in the books Othello was a bloody killer, But Desdemona Will not die this time. It is you who will die. It is you. VVIII Othello in the turban of the caliph Faces the masses With his broken sword. VX I didn't find salvation in love, but I found God. VX I died on the carpet of love, I didn't die by the sword. I died inside a box, thrown in the well of night Suffocated, my secret died with me And my mistress, on her bed Innocently caressing the cat, embroidering the moons In the glacial darkness, Reciting to the caliph A tale about cities of magic and their buried treasures And the morning surprises Desdemona. ________________________ Translate by Bassam k. Frangieh