One summer’s eve in Spain,
I fled through an open window,
Butterflies aflight
In the very pit of me,
And I tramped the streets,
My heart abrim
With such a love,
But a love now long gone.

With my final matches,
I forged a heart
At that maiden’s doorstep;
I was like a thief,
On that torrid night,
My heart abrim
With so much love,
But a love now long gone.

And what of the maiden in azure?
O! What an inferno raged
Within my soul for her,
But that love
Never bloomed beyond a dream,
My heart abrim
With such a love,
But a love now long gone.

I said to Love,
“It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,”
I said to Love.

I said to him,
“We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would’st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,”
I said to him.

I said to Love,
“Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No elfin darts, no cherub air,
Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress,”
I said to Love.

“Depart then, Love!
Man’s race shall perish, threatenest thou,
WIthout thy kindling coupling-vow?
The age to come the man of now
Know nothing of?
We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease…—
So let it be,”
I said to Love.

I
He was leaning by a face,
He was looking into eyes,
And he knew a trysting-place,
And he heard seductive sighs;
But the face,
And the eyes,
And the place,
And the sighs,
Were not, alas, the right ones—the ones meet for him—
Though fine and sweet the features, and the feelings all abrim.

II
She was looking at a form,
She was listening for a tread,
She could feel a waft of charm
When a certain name was said;
But the form,
And the tread,
And the charm,
And name said,
Were the wrong ones for her, and ever would be so,
While the heritor of the right it would have saved her soul to know!

I see it glowing in your eye, so new,
  And on those hips of yours, tender
         and lean,
Hosting Beauty in all its breadth and
         depth, I see the dew
  Of a new dawn in my heart and soul, to
         win
A new horizon  abrim with joy and
        with you lived in peace;
  Like Aurora in early-dawn mist
        carrying those 'milky thighs' that
            forever men's hearts deem
  To beat too fast, speechless in the quiet
         utter loss
In truelove's holy light, unable to awake,
         or dream
  And so is my heart in your  palms,
         whatever you say, wherever you go,
No words can express what in my heart
         wanes,
  What feelings, what thoughts, what
         hopes in want--
Nor how to your ignorance I cannot
        explain my pains,
  What with your love I see and know,
        you just can't
Imagine in your best mind, all things
        being equal:
  Of Joy, and Love,  and all in holy light
Of truelove; but alas! as theirs is a cry
       without content,
  The moth and the star, so truelove for
       you will only be dream of night,
Never to breathe daylight,  never to live
      what was meant
  With Joy, unconditioned love with no
       second-thoughts;
Your "Hi," said with a tremble of soul,
     with a defensive smile,
  Still self-conscious-- treading with
       needless pain,
Worries about tomorrows over which
        you hardly control for even a while,
  And second- thoughts that in our love
        you cannot explain,
Though in your mind you sport it--
        where's the joy of love you're
              supposed to  live, anyway?
                  

                                     ­          -by
                                   Hakim H. Kassim.
                                  (d. July 31, 2023)
                                   /- Jigjiga.