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Nizar Qabbani - Clarification To My Poetry-Readers
Work rating: Medium

And of me say the fools:
I entered the lodges of women 
And never left.
And they call for my hanging,
Because about the matters of my beloved 
I, poetry, compose.
I never traded 
Like others 
In Hashish.
I never stole.
I never killed.
I, in broad day, have loved.
Have I sinned?

And of me say the fools:
With my poetry 
I violated the sky’s commands.
Said who 
Love is 
The honor-ravager of the sky?
The sky is my intimate.
It cries if I cry,
Laughs if I laugh
And its stars 
Greatens their brilliance
If 
One day I fall in love.
What so 
If in the name of my beloved I chant,
And like a chestnut tree 
In every capital I, her, plant.

Fondness will remain my calling,
Like all prophets.
And infancy, innocence 
And purity.
I will write of my beloved’s matters
Till I melt her golden hair 
In the sky’s gold.
I am,  
And I hope I change not, 
A child 
Scribbling on the stars’ walls 
The way he pleases,
Till the worth of love  
In my homeland 
Matches that of the air,
And to love dreamers I become 
A diction-ary,
And over their lips I become
An A 
And a B.
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