Silver And Wine Mingle

Between us

twenty years of age

between your lips and my lips

when they meet and stay

the years collapse

the glass of a whole life shatters.

The day I met you I tore up

all my maps

and my prophecies

like an Arab stallion I smelled the rain

of you

before it wet me

heard the pulse of your voice

before you spoke

undid your hair with my hands

before you had braided it

There is nothing I can do

nothing you can do

what can the wound do

with the knife on the way to it?

Your eyes are like a night of rain

in which ships are sinking

and all I wrote is forgotten

In mirrors there is no memory.

God how is it that we surrender

to love giving it the keys to our city

carrying candles to it and incense

falling down at its feet asking

to be forgiven

Why do we look for it and endure

all that it does to us

all that it does to us?

Woman in whose voice

silver and wine mingle

in the rains

From the mirrors of your knees

the day begins its journey

life puts out to sea

I knew when I said

I love you

that I was inventing a new alphabet

for a city where no one could read

that I was saying my poems

in an empty theater

and pouring my wine

for those who could not

taste it.

When God gave you to me

I felt that He had loaded

everything my way

and unsaid all His sacred books.

Who are you

woman entering my life like a dagger

mild as the eyes of a rabbit

soft as the skin of a plum

pure as strings of jasmine

innocent as children's bibs

and devouring like words?

Your love threw me down

in a land of wonder

it ambushed me like the scent

of a woman stepping into an elevator

it surprised me

in a coffee bar

sitting over a poem

I forgot the poem

It surprised me

reading the lines in my palm

I forgot my palm

It dropped on me like a blind deaf

wildfowl

its feathers became tangled with mine

its cries were twisted with mine

It surprised me

as I sat on my suitcase

waiting for the train of days

I forgot the days

I traveled with you

to the land of wonder

Your image is engraved

on the face of my watch

It is engraved on each of the hands

It is etched on the weeks

months years

My time is no longer mine

it is you 

Nizar Qabbani