When you find a man
Who transforms
Every part of you
Into poetry,
Who makes each one of your hairs
Into a poem,
When you find a man,
Capable,
As I am
OF bathing and adorning you
With poetry,
I will beg you
To follow him without hesitation,
It is not important
That you belong to me or him
But that you belong to poetry.
When You Find a Man
by Nizar Qabbani
translation by Bassam K. Frangieh
and Clementina R. Brown
(this morning i awoke to this in my inbox. and i thought (1) georgette, you are a goddess, because indeed it was georgette who sent it to me and (2) can you imagine how sexy the poem must be in the original arabic? {it's always better in the original tongue}).
{oh yes, and just so you know. today i'm up much too early, sneaking in a few minutes for myself before the day begins in ernest. i'm dancing around to david gray's lately and offering up a silent prayer of thanks that for the time being i make more than enough poetry for myself. (and that i still get to look forward to meeting the man who will transform that poetry, because holly hell there is just so much to look forward to in this life.).}