Coquette

Whoever turns to any but you grows weary — so distill yourself in drops, for the earth is bees. (1)
The morning whittled along the road fair fingertips that beckon,
And the valley leapt up toward the sight of you, and the overlooking height came down.
After you, light is a blush of shame, and the frolicking summit an abasement.
A rising sigh of perfumes, as though God were dawning in a soul,
And a sprinkling of beauty for which the world was fashioned — a cup drunk draught upon draught.
You have drowned in the gleam of eyes, so no shadow of you goes lost,
And been poured into the curtained chamber of surmise, so every passing fancy strays.
Sense agonizes over you — a fire crying for succor, never slaked.
Should the hand crave one hurried touch, from a dream it slips away.

Upon your footsteps tenderness pours down, and rose and jasmine are gathered;
Conscience is spread out as a carpet for them, and in an enamored heart's own flesh they alight.
No procession of lights, no echo of hallowed supplications —
Things bestowed out of passion's drunkenness, and drawn from the very heart.
In them your feet went astray — may the least of it rest safe upon my eyelid.

And your lilting coquetry — in it all coquetry was summed up, and so it was said: grace itself.
The universe has some of its bounties; I, in spite of all, have the whole.
But for you, immortality would slough away from time, and would not abide.

Joseph Najim

(1) It will be noticed that in this poem the hamza is written as the poet wished.