from Ibn al-`Arabi, Turjuman selections, translated by Michael Sells

Poem #61
Beauty in Disarray
translated 26 May 2003

Moringa of the flood bed
on the banks of the river Tigris

A dove on a swaying bough's mournful cooing
has turned me sad,

Her song like the song
of the queen of the gathering

When she touches the chords of her three-stringed lyre
you can forget the maestro brother of the caliph al-Hadi!

And when she sings! -- who was Anjash
that camel driver with the mesmerizing chant, anyway?

In Hadimat, Salma's direction,
and Sindad, I swear it,

I'm over my head in love too deep
for a girl from Ajyadi.

Wrong, she lives in the obsidian black
of the membrane of my liver.

Through her, in a rush of musk
and saffron, beauty falls
into disarray.