هذي دمشقُ وهذي الكأسُ والرّاحُ

Here is Damascus, and here is the cup and the wine... I love, and some love is slaughtering.

I am the Damascene; if you were to carve my body, clusters of grapes and apples would spill from it.

And if you were to open my veins with your dagger, you would hear in my blood the voices of those who passed on.

Heart surgery cures some who have loved, but no surgeon can heal my heart once I have loved.

Is the home of Fatima still well? For her breast is on alert and her kohl is bright at dawn.

The wine here is a scented fire; are the eyes of the women of the Levant drinking cups?

The minarets of the Levant weep as they embrace me, and minarets have souls like trees.

Jasmine has fields in our courtyards, and the house cat dozes wherever it finds rest.

The coffee grinder is part of our childhood; how could I forget when the scent of cardamom is diffusing?

This is the place of my father Al-Mutaz, waiting, and the face of Faizah is sweet and luminous.

Here are my roots, here is my heart, here is my language; how can I explain? Is there clarity in love?

How many a Damascene woman sold her bracelets just so I could woo her, with poetry as the key.

I have come, O willow trees, offering apologies; will Haifa and Waddah forgive?

Fifty years, and my pieces are scattered across the ocean with no lighthouse on the horizon.

Endless seas tossed me about, and demons and phantoms hunted me down.

I fight the ugly in my poetry and my prose until blossoms and fire-stoppers break open.

What is wrong with Arabism that it looks like a widow? Are there no moments of joy left in the history books?

And poetry—what will remain of its authenticity if swindlers and panegyrists take hold of it?

And how are we to write when the locks are on our mouths, and every second brings an executioner?

I carried my poetry on my back and it wore me out; what remains of poetry when it finally rests?