1. Poetry's eyes awaken in the mirrors,

    And the silver of crippled hope puts forth leaves.

  2. Poetry's eyes read the palm of my time,

    And write the story of the averted horizon.

  3. ، ،

    They see, from me and within me, the extent of my endurance,

    And uncover the witness of wounded yesterday.

  4. Poetry's eyes kindle, between my self

    And me, the spring of my artery and my soul.

  5. ، ،

    ؟!

    So I do not know, when I utter poetry,

    Was what I said poetry, or my wounds?!

  6. ،

    The breaths of verse? And many a fragrance

    From Paradise in the slaughtered letter.

  7. In poetry we have life or death,

    And a free man's death is like true poetry.

  8. «»

    ...ِ!

    For life may become like the land of 'Yahweh,'

    And the poem may become like the m...!

  9. The alarm-mongers spread word that a calamity

    Has encircled the eloquent bird of poetry.

  10. «»

    !

    It has become 'folkloric,' a mood;

    So pay no heed to this gored thought!

  11. !

    How often pettiness discredits claims,

    It stares wide-eyed when it looks at the slopes!

  12. The alarm-mongers spread word that a calamity

    Has folded up, with prose, the book of defiance,

  13. ،

    !

    And that today's poem has resigned;

    It sleeps upon letters of sheet metal!

  14. ،

    !

    It has the night of Imru' al-Qays for its exile,

    It has a dawn like the dawn of Ibn al-Jamuh!

  15. !

    It girds the goddess of inspiration with a sword,

    And curses the hapless one of miserly fortune!

  16. !

    !

    And treatment avails nothing in the face of death!

    And swords avail nothing for the fallen!

  17. ،

    !

    Thus they lied; and some truth is a lie,

    Concealing the shame of blatant falsehood!

  18. The unsuccessful man blames the world and complains

    Of religion's corruption in the profitable market.

  19. And the mothers of horses grow barren when

    Weakness trots through fertile meaning.

  20. ِ،

    !

    So woe to tomorrow from today, and from what

    My sores conceal beneath its armpits!

  21. ،

    Poetry be my refuge, as calamities come one after another

    Through what the crow has cawed on every wind.

  22. ،

    Revelation will remain in the furnace of creation,

    From poets—and poets inspire.

  23. ،

    Poetry will remain the chronicle of all creation,

    Its pulse dewy with the generous promise.

  24. ، ،

    ،

    It will remain among humankind a lung and a heart,

    Fair of voice, its edifices trembling,

  25. !

    It barters the rose of the future for a yesterday

    Of barren wilderness and the age that is a tomb!

  26. And indeed we begin dreams as poetry,

    So the jars gush with morning wine.

  27. Through it we restore fragrances to the evenings,

    And carry its book on the day of exodus.

  28. And without poetry, there would have been no languages,

    Nor would imagination have proposed ambition's reach.

  29. ،

    And without poetry, there would be no march of the clouds of

    Feeling, an army of rain-pouring, heavy-laden clouds,

  30. It waters what is fading of history within us,

    And envelops us in a streaming downpour.

  31. ،

    It rebuilds our faces and gazes

    Toward the face of beauty in an ugly face.

  32. ؟!

    Is poetry—with the now-weary blades of the

    Poems—anything but a human being and a soul?!

  33. ،

    !

    For many a poem has sought a banner,

    And many a poem is the conquest of conquests!

Sol 6.1