As a part of its continuing effort to share a portion of the literary wealth of Arabic poetry with the English reader, The Arab American News translates a poem by the legendary Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani.

Poetry always arrives

With the rain

And your beautiful face always arrives

With the rain

Love does not begin

Until the music of the rain starts

When September arrives, my darling,

I ask for your eyes in every cloud

As if my love to you

Is connected to the timing of rain

The scenes of autumn provoke me

Your aesthetic paleness provokes me,

And the split blue lip… provokes me

And the silver earrings…. provoke me

And the cashmere shirt… provokes me

And the green and yellow umbrella… provokes me

The morning newspaper,

Like a talkative woman, provokes me

So what am I to do?

Between the burning of lightening in my fingers

And the sayings of the awaited Messiah? 

Autumn gives me 

A bizarre feeling of safety and danger

I fear that you would draw near

I fear that you would be far

I fear for the civilization of granite from my nails

I fear for the Levantine mosaics from my emotions

I fear that the waves of fate would uproot me 

Is it September that is writing me

Or is it that rain that is doing the writing?

You are my rainy insanity

I wish I knew, my lady,

The relationship between rain and insanity

My lady,

You proceed like an astonishment in the land of humans

Carrying a poem with one hand

And a moon in the other

Poetry explodes when you step on a rock

You carry in your subtlety 

All the sadness of the trees

You sum up my history

And the history of rain