... From my heart, from the flesh of my heart, I have a color.

I plaited its sweet threads from the threads of my eyes.

And I laced its veins with the veins of my breast.

And from my blood I spun it, from the last drop of my blood.

From the long agonies, in the nights of torment, on the road to Golgotha.

From my sleeplessness and my nakedness and my hunger I gathered it, thread by thread.

And in every thread of it, a thread of my flesh, and a thread of my blood, and a thread of my lashes.

Color of my beloved... O color of my beloved... I have nailed you here, upon my breast, with nails of my blood...

You cannot be torn away but my ribs are torn away with you...

O color of my beloved..

Sink deep in my eyes.. and in my hands, O color of my beloved..

•

... And a color, of brocade, of the veins of brocade — I have a color.

As if it were of sprays of coral; the moon carried it to me, from the far shores, the moon carried it to me.

Or as if it were of the colors of the rosy clouds upon our hills.

A thicket of perfumes...

Lily.. and rose.. rose.. and lily..

My son's color... from the spring paths of my country, my son's color.

The wild lilies in the wheat fields of my village asked me:

Is their color, in spring, of my son's color??

And the hills of beguiling violet wondered that their color should be of my son's color!!

And the red rose rejoiced that she is of his color!!

O color... that sleeps upon my ribs. As if you were of the rose beds in my heart...

•

And a color... pure was the hand that wove its fabric.

Who, I wonder, wove it, among all the colors, from the ribs of God.

And she was my mother...

My mother... of the colors of the peony is my mother's face..

The colors know nothing purer, nothing deeper, nothing clearer...

And it is as if he who wove it once, wove it, then cut off his hand, lest he weave from it again.

My mother... of the great, great sacrifices; from her flesh she fed my flesh.

And from her heart she unraveled the veins of her heart, as clothing for my body.

And the light died in her eyes, that the light might remain in mine.

And her back was broken over my bed, to mend what was broken of my bones and what was torn of my flesh, in my agonies and my pains,

and the sickness of my body and my heart...

O color of my mother... O her beloved color.

You alone, you alone are in my blood...