Disclaimer:
Adapted from my Arabic diary (March 2006) with the assistance of AI.
The original poem appears below.Image by Pixabay
Damascus —
“Behind every great man stands a woman—
without her, he would be greater still.”
“Women are half a mind,” they say,
“and surely their cunning is grave.”
Written as a boundary-setting letter in my Arabic diary (March 2006). This is an English adaptation, prepared with the help of AI. The original Arabic poem follows below.
Image by Dương Nhân
Do not return to me—
you’ll find in me but ruin,
fields of ash, collapsed debris.
Strike me from your history—
my presence in your past is sin to be.
Adapted from my Arabic diary, February 2006, with the assistance of AI. The original poem appears below. Image by Nemika F
Damascus —
Rabab—do not shut the windows tight.
The air is vile. Throw open every door.
A hundred fifty years we’ve rotted out of sight,
submerged in mold, entombed in a cellar’s core.
Adapted from my original Arabic diary (January 2006). This English version was created with the help of AI as a literary adaptation. The original Arabic poem follows.
Image by Pixabay
Damascus —
Before your eyes, don’t ask me why
I lose my balance, falter, sway—
Why like a child I shake and shy,
And stumble over what I say.
Don’t ask of me how I am found,
For words desert me when you’re near;
Your eyes are forests, vast, unbound,
No wonder that my tongue disappears.
Written in Damascus in my youth, this poem is addressed to my cousin Roba, as a moral witness and an early influence on my relationship with language and writing. The English version is an adaptation produced with the help of AI. The original Arabic poem appears below.
Image by cottonbro studio
I write with Damascus jasmine, a greeting,
to you—most precious of my kindred line,
you who entered the ledger of my life
the moment you set sail in grief’s long time.
Roumani Line 