Inspired by Spring

Come, let us fill the great trees with warbling from our songs,
and pour into their moist fruit a distillation of our meanings,
and listen to the downy birds as they flutter, greeting us,
scattering flowers among us in honor and in celebration,
that we may pour them amber wine to the strains of music — and they pour for us.

Come, Majd, let us fling ourselves into the swing of the sea,
and run upon the back of the waves, in flood and in ebb,
and drink from the palms of the roses a nectar of blood-red wine,
and string from the water's spray a necklace of enchanting pearls,
and leave one white pearl running in the corners of our eyes.

*

Come, for the new crescent runs behind our sail,
and this trilling nightingale sings in our pipe,
and those green meadows appear upon our robe —
but what shall we do if the slave watchman sees us?
We shall tell him that his roses are of our own hands' planting.

Come, for spring, unbound, has risen in the valley of love;
the maiden of the thickets has clothed him in a gown of hillside blossoms;
on his cheeks, beneath the glance, are embers that betray the heart.
Come, let us plunder the flowers from his shoulders —
but no, let us be patient; surely he will offer them to us.

There, on the banks of the river, is a dreaming, wakeful sapling,
longing for a tender bud, noble of scent, fragrant;
on its green leaves are drops from the dark lips of wine.
If the fire of longing kindles it from a boatman's lyre,
from the blaze of its whispered confiding flies a secret long buried.

*

Awake, for the sweet breeze grows moist from our breaths;
it pours its brimming talk into our melodies as longing —
a soft breeze that wounds neither the palms nor the cheek.
Let it steal the eyelids; give it no echo,
for in its drunken wafts is a greeting from our dwelling places.

Stand in the pasture of the gazelles and cast a hurried glance:
you will see the flock of graceful girls crossing wood and plain.
When the caravan-singer stirs them upon his bereaved strings,
they draw away and fling themselves in the grass, hiding their faces in coyness,
and hover about us, telling the tales of the lovelorn.

Listen to me — you have understood some part of the secret of my ways.
I feel as if within my side there were a fluttering, singing bird,
hovering over a pool asleep in the shade of a swaying bough.
If I set it free, I fear for it the hunter's snare,
and in its red folds the archer's arrow lies buried.