translated from the Arabic by Michael Sells
All I am I'd give
for radiant, coquette maidens
who teased me at the corner
where we kissed the Kaaba stone.
Tracking them you lose
your way, soft wind fragrant
of their traces, your
only guide.
When moonless night drags
dark over me, I remember
them and walk, flooded
in the light of the moon.
When I journey with them
at the fall of darkness
my night becomes
the sun rising.
I traded words of love
with one of them,
a beauty, no other
like her in the mortal world.
When she opens her veil
her face shines,
sunblaze, lighting
the sky, never fading,
Strands of hair along
her forehead, night on sun,
sun and night together,
form inexplicable.
Night is the light
of the day in her.
Day in the dark
of her hair falls night.
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