by Ibn al-ʿArabī
Gentle now,
thornberry doves and moringa thicket,
don’t add your sighs to my heartache.
Gentle now, or your sad cooing
will reveal the love I hide
the sorrow I hide
~
A white-blazed gazelle is an amazing sight,
red-dye signalling,
eyelids hinting,
a pasture between breastbones
and entrails.
Marvel, a garden among the flames!
My heart is capable of any form:
it is a meadow for gazelles,
a cloister for Christian monks,
a sacred ground for idols,
the Kaaba for the whirling pilgrim.
It is the tablets of the Torah,
the scrolls of the Qur’an.
I follow the religion of love–
wherever its caravan winds along the way.
That is my belief,
and my faith.
Poem 11 of tarjumān al-ashwāq -The Interpreter of Desires retranslated Isabella Colalillo Katz based on the R. A. Nicholson translation (1911)
