Every year, my love...
1
Every year, my love...
I say it to you,
When the clock strikes midnight
And the past year sinks into the waters of my sorrows
Like a ship made of paper...
I say it to you in my own way...
Transcending all the festive rituals
that the world has been practising since 1975...
Breaking all the traditions of false joy
that people have been clinging to since 1975...
And rejecting...
All the classic phrases...
That men repeat to women
since 1975...
2
Every year, my love...
I say it to you with all simplicity...
Like a child reciting his prayers before bedtime
And like a bird standing on a wheat stalk...
The flowers embroidered on your white dress multiply...
flower by flower...
And the boats waiting in the harbour of your eyes increase...
Boat by boat...
I say it to you warmly and passionately
Like a Spanish dancer stamping his foot on the ground
Forming thousands of circles
Around the circumference of the globe
3
Every year, my love
These are the four words...
That I will wrap in a ribbon of cane
And send to you on New Year's Eve
All the cards they sell in bookshops
Do not say what I want...
And all the drawings on them...
of candles, bells, trees, snowballs,
children, and angels...
do not suit me.
I am not comfortable with ready-made cards...
nor with ready-made poems...
nor for wishes that are printed on them.
They are all printed in Paris, London, or Amsterdam...
and written in French or English...
to suit all occasions.
And you are not a woman of occasions...
you are the woman I love...
You are this daily pain...
That cannot be expressed in greeting cards...
Nor in Latin letters...
Nor in correspondence...
But only when the clock strikes midnight...
And you enter like a fish into my warm waters...
And bathe there...
And my mouth travels through the forests of your gypsy hair
And settles there...
4
Because I love you...
The new year enters upon us...
Like the entrance of kings...
And because I love you...
I carry a special permit from God...
To wander among millions of stars...
5
We will not buy a tree this holiday
You will be the tree
And I will hang on you...
My wishes... My prayers...
And the lanterns of my tears...
6
Every year, my love...
A wish I am afraid to make...
Lest I be accused of greed or arrogance...
An idea I am afraid to think...
Lest people steal it from me...
And claim they were the first to invent poetry...
7
Every year, you are my beloved...
Every year, I am your beloved...
I know that I wish for more than I should...
And dream more than is permissible...
But...
Who has the right to judge me for my dreams?
Who judges the poor?
If they dream of sitting on the throne
For five minutes?
Who judges the desert if it longs for a stream of water?
There are three cases in which dreaming becomes legitimate:
The case of madness. .
The case of poetry.
The case of meeting an amazing woman like you.
And I suffer—fortunately—
from all three cases.
8
Leave your clan...
and follow me to my inner adventures.
Leave your paper hat...
and your gypsy music...
and your fancy dress...
and sit with me under the lightning tree...
and the blue cloak of poetry...
I will cover you with my coat from the rain of Beirut
And I will give you red wine...
From the cellars of the monks...
And I will make you a Spanish dish...
From sea shells...
Follow me, my lady, to the back streets of dreams...
I will show you poems I have never read to anyone...
And I will open to you the bags of my tears...
Which I have never opened to anyone...
And I will love you...
As no one else loves you...
9
When the clock strikes twelve
And the globe loses its balance
And the dancers begin to think with their feet...
I will retreat into myself...
And I will pull you with me...
For you are a woman who is not bound by public joy...
Nor with public time...
Nor with this great circus passing before us...
Nor with those pagan drums beating around us...
Nor with paper masks that leave nothing at the end of the night
But paper men...
And paper women...
10
Ah... my lady...
If it were up to me...
Then I would create a year just for you...
You could arrange its days as you wish...
And lean back on its weeks as you wish...
And sunbathe...
And bathe...
And run on the sands of its months...
As you wish...
Ah... My lady...
If it were up to me...
I would build a capital for you in the suburbs of time
That does not follow the system of sundials and hourglasses
And where real time does not begin
Except...
When your little hand takes its nap...
Inside my hand...
11
Every year... I am entangled with you...
And pursued on charges of loving you...
Just as the sky is accused of being blue
And birds are accused of travelling
And the lip is accused of turning...
Every year I am struck by your earthquake...
And wet by your rain...
And engraved - like a Chinese vase - with the contours of your body
Every year you... I don't know what to call you...
You choose your names...
Just as a dot chooses its place on the line
And just as a comb chooses its place in the folds of hair...
And until you choose your new name
Allow me to call you:
"My love"...
P