If you are my friend...
Help me...to leave you
Or if you are my lover...
Help me...so I can be healed of you...
If I knew....
that the ocean is very deep...I would not have swam...
If I knew...how I would end,
I would not have began
I desire you...so teach me not to desire
teach me...
how to cut the roots of your love from the depths
teach me...
how tears may die in the eyes
and love may commit suicide
If you are prophet,
Cleanse me from this spell
Deliver me from this atheism...
Your love is like atheism...so purify me from this atheism
If you are strong...
Rescue me from this ocean
For I don't know how to swim
The blue waves...in your eyes
drag me...to the depths
blue...
blue...
nothing but the color blue
and I have no experience
in love...and no boat...
If I am dear to you
then take my hand
For I am filled with desire...from my
head to my feet
I am breathing under water!
I am drowning...
drowning...
drowning...
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Comments
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beautiful
From guest Bilkis (contact)
this poem is so beautiful.... the poem really captures the struggles in today's world. im sure there are many people who have found themselves wanting to say the same thing to someone they care about, only for the words to remain on their lips until it was too late..... -
intense
i love in the way you expressed in words emotions i have experienced in my own life. -
Deep
From guest Noura (contact)
Dude, that's real deep. It seems like he could be talking about anyone. Sometimes, I feel that he is writing on behalf of his sister who commited suicide because she was kept from marrying the man she loved. I do believe this event was in the core of making Nizar such a feminist writer. Overwhelmed by the fateful event and perplexed by the needless Arab tabboos of society at the time. It's what made him rebel and at least fight for true love. It's perhaps, something he felt he could do to help those like his sister. God knows. -
From guest nouha (contact)
very nice indeed.. i liked it so much the romance is deeply shown... Bravo -
wow what a good poem. His style is clearly shown. The ecetra he ued to expres how the words he still ponders on. Its help with the timing of how to read it.
he shows so much compassion he is fee of what to say and how he should say it.
I lov ehow he compares the love to ocean but yet he says it creatively
he says
can be healed of you...
If I knew....
that the ocean is very deep...I would not have swam...
wow this idea. One must work on the love. He never knew loving her would be so hard or maybe trying to get he r love back. He wouldn't have tired if.
so.
Must this be like me. I try not to fall in love for I know Idon't want to have to swin again across the deep ocean, trying to keep my lover beside me for times we may fight and I may get restless and drown like what he says.
He's drowning because love is so hard. Drowning because she'ns not there yet I don't know why. He's trying to get her love or maybe he trying to fallin love with her or with someone? Anyone? but he is drowning meaning NOW he alone's and he knows NOW that LOVE IS SOOOO HARD,
he wants to love again being prepared he is. -
translation sucks
From guest Dina (contact)
i was doin a project about this translating poems from arabic to english and stuff when i read it in arabic and in english there is so many missing lines and some words means tottaly different meaning thank god i noticed i would've failed this assigment -
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great
One of the most beautiful poem by great Qabbani.he can express the feelings of a true heart...a true love -
How true the comment
From guest Udo Anders (contact)
I presently 12/2006 study Arabic at a Yemen language school - with my teacher we will try to produce a much more adequate translation - inshallah. -
terrible translation
This translation mutilates the orignal arabic. Whole lines have been left out and tenses have been unnecessarily changed. This translation does not preserve the integrity of the original poem. It should be removed from the site and replaced with a more accurate translation. -
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Translation?
Bluemoonsundays-
Can you point to a better translation, or provide one yourself?
Charley Noble
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The poem is very nicely composed and the beauty of the poem is self-contradicting technique…
"If you are my friend...
Help me...to leave you
Or if you are my lover...
Help me...so I can be healed of you..."
The poet himself doesn’t want his hero to quit so he has justified his anxiety or fear with very soft reasoning and simple logical self-contradictions such as...
"For I don't know how to swim
The blue waves...in your eyes
drag me...to the depths”
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