I AM YOUR OTHER HALF

I AM YOUR OTHER HALF
By Mahmoud Said Kawash

He said to her:
I sit alone with the tormented star, bewildered,
While your rosy vision leaves its poet spellbound.
Intoxicating ecstasy, your lips, and your dark-hued mouth—
A heady wine of desire, surging and tempestuous.
How often your image has wandered through my dreams,
Joyful, weaving emotions within the realm of fancy,
To join the lyre in its sighs of longing,
And herald glad tidings to the sorrowful lover.
An evening of goodness, blessings, tenderness, and nostalgia--;--
An evening of yearning—all the yearning in the world, and more--;--
May your evening be love, and love, and love.
How does one address the one who has captivated the heart and left it wandering in love?
How are you—you, a city of enchanting women?
Speak, O smile of scented hope upon my lips--;--
Come, speak, speak, and speak—
Tell me who you are, and from which planet you came,
And upon the wing of which meteor you rode,
To arrive and find a welcome home within my heart.
Speak… come, speak:
Who are you?
She answered him:
Me? Who am I, my love, my passion? I am but a woman chasing ethereal ghosts,
Sending forth angelic melodies,
Adoring narcissus blooms--;--
For no flower exists that does not bear a trace of my fragrance,
And no poem but turns to fire before the grandeur of my words.
For I remain a woman—
Where civilization is a woman,
Where the poem is a woman,
Where the perfume vial is a woman,
And the wheat stalk is a woman,
And Palestine—despite her wounds—is a woman.
I am nothing but a woman,
Having reached the turning point
Between the darkness of night
And the dawn of day.
And should you ask who I am—
In the name of all who write poetry:
I am a woman!
I am the one who loved you with a passion beyond measure--;--
Yet after all this, you ask: “Who are you?”
This is who I am—do you now know?
I am the one who loved you, loves you, and will love no other after this day!
I am the one whom you loved, whom you love, and whom you will love—and no other—after this day!
I am your other half, the one who makes you whole.
I believe you now know who I am.

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