The Moon's Path

...Splendid literary selections from the book "Darb al-Qamar" (The Moon's Path), the first book of the late man of letters, Fouad Suleiman, published simultaneously with this issue by "Dar al-Ahad."

...Our roads in the mountain are tales...

One belongs to the proud water jar, in the elegance of its carrying — it comes down to earth, or it does not.

And to the red cheeks, the color of luscious apples, if you will, or like the colors of sunrise, when the light steals through from behind our high mountains.

And one belongs to song and the herdsman's chant, in the dusk of the sun's going down, along which our young men come home, slow steps, to warmth and well-being.

And one belongs to the clusters, in the vineyards.

And one belongs to the moon... as though the moon rose nowhere but there...

It was the tale of tales in the village...

And it was love's...

I wonder...? Is it still love's?

Or has love died in the roads of our village, the village on the white hill?!

And is it still the moon's, I wonder? Or has the moon turned his road away from it?...

It was a bed of roses... and a rope of silk going and coming, never broken save when the ropes of night are broken.

No — it was a lock of the moon's hair, tied down to the earth with eyelashes.