Arab children,
Corn ears of the future,
You will break our chains,
Kill the opium in our heads,
Kill the illusions.
Arab children,
Don’t read about our suffocated generation,
We are a hopeless case.
We are as worthless as a water-melon rind.
Don’t read about us,
Don’t ape us,
Don’t accept us,
Don’t accept our ideas,
We are a nation of crooks and jugglers.
Arab children,
Spring rain,
Corn ears of the future,
You are the generation
That will overcome defeat.
Nizar Qabbani, “Verse” s. 20

Lately I seem to find myself doing housework to Arabic music from the 1950’s and ‘60’s. I imagine I’m declaring love that surpasses understanding or reason while I iron shirts, and asking God for patience with a lover’s thick headedness while wiping down the countertops, complete with emphatic hand gestures and head tosses.

When a man is in love
how can he use old words?
Should a woman
desiring her lover
lie down with
grammarians and linguists?

I said nothing
to the woman I loved
but gathered
love’s adjectives into a suitcase
and fled from all languages.

Nizar Qabbani, “Language”

Source: allpoetry.com

Yara—“Hawel Marra,” 2009

In this dreamlike offering from Lebanese artist Yara, she offers her lover to “just try to leave, then tell me what you see. Then, try to return to me. Tell me, can you see the difference?” She reminds him that all the tenderness he needs she guards in her heart and creates comfort in her strength. She passionately proclaims that she is the fire of his soul, and that she will give him peace. But if he is still not convinced, just try to leave, and come back—then he will find out the difference for himself.

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