Wheat grows between the pages of books ... Nazir Qabanni, Syrian poet

A draft of a Nizar Qabanni poem. 

A Syrian poet, publisher, diplomat, Nizar Qabbani was born on March 21, 1923. He died in 1998.  I was looking for a poet born today, the first day of Spring, when flowers spring up. Love is a flower or so I'm told.

When I Love You

When I love you
A new language springs up,
New cities, new countries discovered.
The hours breathe like puppies,
Wheat grows between the pages of books,
Birds fly from your eyes with tiding of honey,
Caravans ride from your breasts carrying Indian herbs,
The mangoes fall all around, the forests catch fire
And Nubian drums beat.

When I love you your breasts shake off their shame,
Turn into lightning and thunder, a sword, a sandy storm.
When I love you the Arab cities leap up and demonstrate
Against the ages of repression
And the ages
Of revenge against the laws of the tribe.
And I, when I love you,
March against ugliness,
Against the kings of salt,
Against the institutionalization of the desert.
And I shall continue to love you until the world flood arrives;
I shall continue to love you untill the world flood arrives.

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Nizar Qabbani, from On Entering the Sea: The Erotic and Other Poetry of Nizar Qabbani, translated by Lena Jayyusi and Jack Collum.