“What is the difference between me and the sky?”
The difference, my Love,
Is that when you laugh,
I forget about the sky.
* * *
Because my love for you
Is higher than words,
I have decided to fall silent.
* * *
I’m not a teacher
To show you how to love
Fish don’t need a teacher
To learn how to swim
Birds don’t need a teacher
To learn how to fly.
* * *
I want to say:
I only love you,
And I cling you,
Like the peel clings to a pomegranate,
Like the tear clings to the eye,
Like the knife clings to the wound.
* * *
I want to shoot
At all the poems I wrote you
At all the hysterical dedications
That I issued
In moments of intense love
Or
In moments of intense stupidity.
* * *
I am afraid
To express my love to you
Wine loses its fragrance
When poured into a chalice.
Низар Каббани