They claim to be in love,

When it is he whose heart is possessed by rhymes and songs

He has been infatuated with beautiful words since he was a kid

O poetry! You have filled all my cells with visions of  meaning and form

You contain images, tales, dances, and songs vibrating with rhythm and tune

You encompass all forms of beauty: colour, light and fragrance

You are the nursery field for planting love and glory

Filling the heart with bliss and beauty

You adore justice, dignity, and truth, and detest corruption and injustice

And you prescribe morals and high ideals

And you continue to be the fortification for innocence

You cross over epochs with your letters whilst so many edifices collapse.

At the beginning there was the word,

And the Revelation started with “Read!” O! How hefty is the word

Do not listen to him who says the age of poetry is gone,

That time has overtaken it

And that in this age only science and money can build civilization;

The throb of a heart is greater than the flash of a brilliant mind

And is loftier than all materials which convert man into a slave to their magic.

What is the value of a body with no soul that transcends distance and space

×××

Come let us greet Al-Mutanabi who is restless, for the winds blow right and left

And here is Al-Muarri treading lightly on the earth

And on the big stage Shakespeare chants: “To be or not to be”

And the Tunis young man cries: If a nation decides to live it destroys its prison

And Az-Zubairy chants we have left the prisons with raised noses like lions

And bleeding fists knock the doors of Shouqy for the sake of life

And the Southerner calls: “Don’t sign a truce” even if they give you a ton of gold

And here is Darwish saying: “Record”

.. for we are the grandchildren of Khaled and Al-Muthanna

O poetry! You are for life, and not just for art