I Scatter You Before Me Line By Line With A Mastery I Possessed Only In Beginnings.In The Presence Of

“I scatter you before me line by line with a mastery I possessed only in beginnings.” “In the Presence of Absence” by Mohamed Darwish

By Allaah, had they known the ugliness of my inner self,

Whoever met me would have refused to greet me

And they would have shunned me and be disgusted with my friendship

And I would have drawn on myself disgrace after honour

But You covered my faults and defects,

And You bore my sin and my tyranny

So all Praise is to You, and all commendations

With my thoughts, my limbs and my tongue

O Lord, You have indeed bestowed upon me blessings

The smallest of which I cannot fully give thanks for

{Nuniyah al-Qahtani}

‌ A poet is at liberty to lie, but

he only lies in love because the heart’s provinces are open to alluring.

- Mahmoud Darwish

What is love?

XVII

Do not go far! they say as they bury me

Where, if not faraway, is my place?

MALIK IBN AL-RAYB