Poetry: Ashraf AboArafe
When I dream of her,
she calls me—
not with a voice,
but with a hidden summons
rising from the alleys
and the trembling of light upon water.
I drink from her Bosphorus,
as if thirst were my name,
and wonder
a long-delayed homeland.
My eyes fall asleep
upon her stony forehead;
domes become pillows,
and minarets
the sky’s deep breaths.
All the beauties of Istanbul—
are not ornaments to be seen,
but the order of a heart
that knows how to love,
and the cleanliness of a soul
that washes meaning
before place.
Here, beauty
and refined taste
exchange their definitions,
like two lovers
inventing language
each morning.
She reminds me
of the Mother of the World,
not because they resemble one another,
but because both know
how to be
a city
and a beloved.
She is:
a jinn when she smiles,
an angel when she falls silent,
and human
when she errs—
and thus grows
closer.
And when she calls me,
I finally understand
that cities,
like women,
are not loved by reason,
but by
belonging.
At the end of the road,
I realize that Cairo
was never far away;
she was walking beside me
as I crossed
Istanbul.
The same steps,
heavy
with meaning.
The same smile
that knows sorrow
yet
refuses to surrender it.
The same heart
that opens its windows to the stranger
as if he were
a child
of the house.
Cairo
and Istanbul—
two cities
that do not compete,
but
embrace
through memory,
through history,
through a single
pulse:
if it stops in one,
the other
gasps.
And so,
when I leave,
I do not bid farewell to a city,
but
shake hands with a sister
who resembles the first
in spirit—
and differs
only
in name.
