Why do we fear words when they have been rose-palmed hands, fragrant, passing gently over our cheeks, and glasses of heartening wine sipped, one summer, by thirsty lips? *** Why do we fear words when among them are words like unseen bells, whose echo announces in our troubled lives the coming of a period of enchanted dawn, drenched in love, and life? So why do we fear words? *** We took pleasure in silence. We became still, fearing the secret might part our lips. We thought that in words laid an unseen ghoul, crouching, hidden by the letters from the ear of time. We shackled the thirsty letters, we forbade them to spread the night for us as a cushion, dripping with music, dreams, and warm cups. *** Why do we fear words? Among them are words of smooth sweetness whose letters have drawn the warmth of hope from two lips, and others that, rejoicing in pleasure have waded through momentary joy with two drunk eyes. Words, poetry, tenderly turned to caress our cheeks, sounds that, asleep in their echo, lies a rich color, a rustling, a secret ardor, a hidden longing. *** Why do we fear words? If their thorns have once wounded us, then they have also wrapped their arms around our necks and shed their sweet scent upon our desires. If their letters have pierced us and their face turned callously from us Then they have also left us with an oud in our hands And tomorrow they will shower us with life. So pour us two full glasses of words! *** Tomorrow we will build ourselves a dream-nest of words, high, with ivy trailing from its letters. We will nourish its buds with poetry and water its flowers with words. We will build a balcony for the timid rose with pillars made of words, and a cool hall flooded with deep shade, guarded by words. *** Our life we have dedicated as a prayer To whom will we pray . . . but to words? ---------------- Translated from the Arabic by Rebecca Carol Johnson