Sunset of a Heart

O sun of the sunset,
gently now — go back behind the setting-place,
take away the pallor,
for the meeting with the beloved
is tomorrow... when the morning sun comes up.
Tomorrow, everything grows light.

And I passed it, a night, at ease,
thinking of the evenings of tomorrow,
thinking of my happy dream
and of the one who will bind up those wounds.

And this sunrise
will seal that long separation
with a meeting that delights
my heart — and here it is, longing to set out
to meet the friend.

And I could bear no long forbearance,
for the road
is long... I grew weary of waiting.
At last it came,
and scarcely had it settled
into my night — and yet I stood amid a fire.

*

A new sunrise
brings me glad tidings of sweet hopes,
and my heart, alone,
searches among the companions;
and this meeting,
like a flash of light,
with a flood of love and fierce longing.

*

With longing that insists,
his face and his eyes look out at me,
and my guess comes true —
how much, I wonder, have the years changed him?!
He calls: Come.
He calls: Do you not hear the call?
Why do you call:
Come... and then fall silent — what has come over you?
And this heart of mine —
silence has been sweeping it away since first it saw you.

You do not know,
and you pass the meeting in a doubtful silence;
you have thrown me into confusion —
you will remain alone, a stranger, a stranger.

With this silence
my inspiration dies.
I turn back — for you are not that beloved.

Sabriyya al-Husso
Amara — Iraq