Sandman's Journal

Though I blog alone on a still-frozen plain, I visualize billions of green bulbs beneath the snow. They burn like poetry.

"When I Love" by Nizar Qabbani:

When I love
I feel that I am the king of time
I possess the earth and everything on it
and ride into the sun upon my horse.

When I love
I become liquid light
invisible to the eye
and the poems in my notebooks
become fields of mimosa and poppy.

When I love
the water gushes from my fingers
grass grows on my tongue
when I love
I become time outside all time.

When I love a woman
all the trees
run barefoot toward me…

Qabbani, like Neruda and Sappho and Rumi and Tagore and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, wrote heart prayers.

Oh, my love
If you were at the level of my madness,
You would cast away your jewelry,
Sell all your bracelets,
And sleep in my eyes