Do not ask me the name of my love,
I fear for you,
from the fragrance of perfume contained in a bottle,
if you smashed it, drowning you, in spilled scent.
By God, if you even croaked a letter,
Lilacs would pile up on the paths
Do not look for it here in my chest
I have left it to run with sunset,
You can see it in the laughter of Doves in the flutter of butterflies
In the ocean, in the breathing of dales and in the song of every nightingale,
in the tears of winter, when winter cries
in the giving of a generous cloud…
NIZAR QABBANI
