godzilla in arachnid form

وأعطتنْي زينبَ وعُمَرْ رغم أنف القبيلةْ

وعندما كنتُ أسألُها : لماذا؟ كانت تأخُذُني كالطفل إلى صدرها وتُتَمْتِمْ لأنكَ انت قبيلتي

she married me, in spite of the tribe and she traveled with me, in spite of the tribe and she gave me zaynab and omar, in spite of the tribe

and when I used to ask her why she would take me, like a child, against her chest and say “because you are my tribe”

— nizar qabbani

افدي قمراً لاحعلينا وتلالأ ما احسنه رب تبارك وتعالى قد حل بروحي فتداعفت حياة واليوم نأى عني عزاً وجالاً ادعوه سراراً واناديه جهاراً ان ابدلي الصبوة طيفاً وخيالاً لو قطعني دهري لا زات انادي كي تخترق الحجب ويروين وصلاً لا مل من العشق لو مر قرون حاشاه مللاً بي حاشاي مللاً العاشق حوت وهوى العشق كبحر هل مل إذا ما سكن الحوب زلالاً؟

Yes! My soul will be sacrificed for you!  You are the full moon. You rise, and you shine.  Praised and glorified be God for that shine!  You invaded my soul, doubled my life.  Then, you left—with that noble pride of thine.  Today, I pray to you in secret, or  I shout out loud these mad love dreams of mine.  Life tears me to pieces, and still I shout:  Pierce through these veils! Let me drink your love’s wine!  Centuries of loving, and he’s never  bored with love. Never will his love decline.  My lover is a whale, and my desire  pure water—an ocean—with no end time.  Can a whale grow bored in a pure ocean?

— jalal ad-din muhammad rumi

I love you as if all hearts were a mirror of mine as if life were invented for my love I love you O how much I deleted from your lips built my heart into a road and a house hung it as a cloud over clouds and how I equated beauty with you and her fantasy sprout and how and how I love you the light in your eyes has withdrawn it has been flooded our hair like drifts of snow poured on your shoulders braided, tied or loose I feel time has melted in my eyelids solidified and tumbled like silence.

— adonis

Your eyes are two palm tree forests in early light, Or two balconies from which the moonlight recedes When they smile, your eyes, the vines put forth their leaves, And lights dance … like moons in a river Rippled by the blade of an oar at break of day; As if stars were throbbing in the depths of them … And they drown in a mist of sorrow translucent Like the sea stroked by the hand of nightfall; The warmth of winter is in it, the shudder of autumn, And death and birth, darkness and light; A sobbing flares up to tremble in my soul And a savage elation embracing the sky, Frenzy of a child frightened by the moon. It is as if archways of mist drank the clouds And drop by drop dissolved in the rain … As if children snickered in the vineyard bowers, The song of the rain Rippled the silence of birds in the trees … Drop, drop, the rain Drip Drop the rain

Dear Milena,

I wish the world were ending tomorrow. Then I could take the next train, arrive at your doorstep in Vienna, and say: “Come with me, Milena. We are going to love each other without scruples or fear or restraint. Because the world is ending tomorrow.” Perhaps we don’t love unreasonably because we think we have time, or have to reckon with time. But what if we don’t have time? Or what if time, as we know it, is irrelevant? Ah, if only the world were ending tomorrow. We could help each other very much.