The Maiden & Her Lover:

only some minor extracts of the female arab poet Wallada bint al-Mustakfi and then only a few lines: I am, by God, nfut for high positions, And am going my way with pride! Forsooth, I allow my lover to touch my cheek, And bestow my kiss on him who craves it! 1 Wait for me whenever darkness falls, For nnight i see contains a secret best. If the heavens felt this love I feel for you, The sun would not shine, nor the moon rise, Nor would the stars launch out upon their journey. 2 Must separation mean we have no wa\y to meet? Ay! Lovers all moan about their troubles. For me it is a winter not a trysting time, Crouching over the hot coals of desire. If we're apart, nothing can be otherwise. How soon just the very thing I feared Was what my destiny delivered. Night after night And separation going on and on and on, Nor does my being patient free me from The shackles of my longing. Please God There may be winter rains pelting copiously down To irrigate the earth where you now dwell. 3 Had you any respect for the love between us, You would not choose that slave of mine to love. From a branch flowering in beauty you turn To a branch that bears no fruit. You know I am the moon at full, But worse luck for me It's Jupiter you have fallen for. 4 They'll call you the Hexagon, an epithet Properly yours even after you drop dead: Gigolo, pimp, adulterer, Cuckold, cheat, blasphemer. (Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (d.1091/2) (And two poems from the female sufi poet Rabia al-Adawiyyah d. AD 801) Two Loves I Give Thee: Two loves I give Thee: love that yearns And love because Thy due is love. My yearning my rememberance turns to Thee, nor lets it from Thee rove. Thou hast Thy due when'er it please Thee To lift the veils for me to see Thee. Praise is Not mine in this, nor yet in that, but Thine in this and that. In My Soul: In my soul there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church where I kneel. Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist. Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is illuminated nothing, where ecstasy gets poured into itself and becomes lost, where the wing is fully alive but no mind or body? In my soul there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church that dissolve, that dissolve in God. (Two contrasting poems from two contrasting female poets. i prefer the latter. hope you enyed these Amalzamani.

perhaps you could give me the names of some female Arabic poets to fill in the gaps of my ignorance. lovely to hear from you as usual love john x

dear Diatom Shells, thanlkyou very much for reading my poem, it's actually quite an old one, a few years old anyway. I'm always returning to your page hoping I might find a new one of yours. I love your mythic poems, and I think we share an interest in the bible stories retold.