To gaze at a river made of time and water And remember Time is another river. To know we stray like a river and our faces vanish like water.

-Borges

The sea is neither departure’s afterlife, nor its extent

How beautiful are dreams conceived in vain.

If death plucks stars out of lust

A more dire death is to live forever.

I was created a river, some of my sorrow is because

When I lusted for the rose, I was not a dew drop.

My only sin is trespassing my own path

I imagined myself to be water, and I became steel.

I am not pleased that wounds are my nature

Harsher than being stabbed is growing accustomed.

And I am orphaned by memories; each time

I grasp at yesterday’s shadow, I awake tomorrow.

Middle aged, my steps are not tired, in my mouth

Is fog’s harbor; it must rise for me to be born

An infant, and from the first burst

Still in the source, my face became wrinkled like life itself.

My back has curved, and the branches call out to me:

“You were absolute error when you were guidance”

My eagerness was no fire, my passion no flame,

How needy are rivers for fuel.

In my search for my own secret I continue

To chase the water, that we may unite

And I remain thirsty; it flows and I trace it

Ye who come to drink, I am not the source,

For I am the eye’s component; I have been afflicted

By the story’s similitude: to prevail and so to be envied.

If I had a neck I would glance at my carcass;

A lifetime sheathed within the story’s willow

Or if I had a past to recall my saddle,

Wounded like the wind when the echo pulses

Or if I could settle on the banks, to cherish myself,

Half of death is renewal

Or if I had salt, I would weep for two victims,

For one bank that reached out to the other

Yet I am a mirror– completely blind,

It does not see, but all existence can be seen through it

And I am destined, from the moment they placed dust over me,

I swore by the earth’s name that I shall never rest

You who granted me great pleasures created me

Free, shackled by the chains of departure

So grant your munificence to he who disobeys you,

And return to me just once the ability to yearn,

Or return the ability to perish.

Translated from the Arabic by Omar Abdelghaffar.