When we two parted
   In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
   To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
   Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
   Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
   Sunk chill on my brow— 
It felt like the warning
   Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
   And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
   And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
   A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me—
   Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
   Who knew thee too well—
Long, long shall I rue thee,
   Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met—
   In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
   Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
   After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
   With silence and tears.

you are curled under
unconsummated kiss,
folded into the violence
of blueberries crushed
between teeth, dying
sugars of once growing
fruit, and i let it linger.

your hands map
a body that requires
no discovery,
nor conquest.

you speak softened
drama of fury and frenzy,
quiet underbelly, light
beaming into peaceful
dark interrupted by
minor collisions
bodies were built
to withstand. you,
looping daydreams
and gasps silent
under skin until
partitions of distance
and judgment lapse
into surreptitious mist.

you are the laugh
that falls orange
against my cheek
and dries slight
sweat cooling.

in the smallest fleck
of imagination, you
become a dream
i needed to recall
as muscles found
new persistence
flexing in a crucible
where the world
expands beyond
the steady scruff
of sandpaper
graded routine. you,
small map unfolding
a globe that vanished
within mundane block.

you open a door
with a word, if any,
or a pause hanging
like an ornament
in your full smirk.

is like being burned up
in a twelfth-floor elevator.
Or drowned in a flipped SUV.

It’s like waking with scalpels 
arrayed on my chest.
Like being banished to 1983.

Having a fight with you 
is never, ever less horrid: that whisper 
that says you never loved me—

my heart a stalled engine
out the little square window.
Your eyes a white-capped black sea.

I am yours as the summer air at evening is
Possessed by the scent of linden blossoms,

As the snowcap gleams with light
Lent it by the brimming moon.

Without you I'd be an unleafed tree
Blasted in a bleakness with no Spring.

Your love is the weather of my being.
What is an island without the sea?

^{Translated from the Arabic by Joseph Dacre Carlyle} 

When you told us our glances, soft, timid, and mild,
      Could occasion such wounds in the heart,
Can ye wonder that yours, so ungovern’d and wild,
      Some wounds to our cheeks should impart?

The wounds on our cheeks, are but transient, I own,
      With a blush they appear and decay;
But those on the heart, fickle youths, ye have shewn
      To be even more transient than they.

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.

This is not love: we cannot call it love.
Love would make me aware of infinite things,
Drive me down the spirit’s vast abyss
And through the narrow fastnesses of pain.
This is not love. Yet it holds loveliness
Beyond mere pleasure. Peace and passion both
Grow from the kiss with which I paint drab hours.
It is not love: love is for the gods
And our more godlike moments. Yet when stars
Withhold their splendor, why should we not light
Candles to warm with kindly mortal flames
The all-enfolding, cold, immortal night?

You say you will not think of me:
You shut me out and count your beads,
The chaplet of your rules and doubts,
But lovers never think of creeds.

You’ll fill your mind with serious things:
You’ll think of God or Infinity,
Of a lover whose last charm is gone,
Of anything in the world but me.

Yet every thought will lead you back,
Infinity grow far and dim,
And God, with His sense of irony,
Will never let you think of Him.

The moon has left the sky, love,
    The stars are hiding now,
And frowning on the world, love,
    Night bares her sable brow.
The snow is on the ground, love,
    And cold and keen the air is.
I'm singing here to you, love;
    You're dreaming there in Paris.

But this is Nature's law, love,
    Though just it may not seem,
That men should wake to sing, love;
    While maidens sleep and dream.
Them care may not molest, love,
    Nor stir them from their slumbers,
Though midnight find the swain, love.
    Still halting o'er his numbers.

I watch the rosy dawn, love,
    Come stealing up the east,
While all things round rejoice, love,
    That Night her reign has ceased.
The lark will soon be heard, love,
    And on his way be winging;
When Nature's poets wake, love,
    Why should a man be singing?

^{for Maria}

Sitting across the table from you

I think back to when our friendship

came down from the mountains.

It was a cold day and the miners

had not left for work.

You break a cookie in half like bread

and this sharing is what we both now need.

That which breaks into crumbs are memories.

Your gray hair cut short and you ask if I notice.

How can I tell you that Bolivia will always be

beautiful and everything I notice is you

and yes is you. Our napkins folded in our hands.

Folded as if our meeting now is prayer.

Did I ever tell you that your eyes are a map

and I would lose myself if you ever turned away

I shall never have any fear of love, 
Not of its depth nor its uttermost height,
Its exquisite pain and its terrible delight.
I shall never have any fear of love.

I shall never hesitate to go down
Into the fastness of its abyss
Nor shrink from the cruelty of its awful kiss.
I shall never have any fear of love.

Never shall I dread love’s strength
Nor any pain it might give.
Through all the years I may live
I shall never have any fear of love.

I shall never draw back from love
Through fear of its vast pain
But build joy of it and count it again.
I shall never have any fear of love.

I shall never tremble nor flinch
From love’s moulding touch:
I have loved too terribly and too much
Ever to have any fear of love.