Ashraf AboArafe
The tender drops of rain met
the chest of a sea heavy with salt,
and the horizon trembled in a hidden hymn,
as though the sky were casting its letters
into the arms of an old soul worn by time.
The clouds’ droplets stepped forward
with the shyness of a bride led to the unknown,
asking the waves:
How does thirst kiss its own quenching?
How does one opposite greet another
without meaning breaking apart?
The sea smiled—
seasoned by longing since the first tide—
and said:
I am the salt of tears when waiting grows long,
and you are the sweetness of reunion when absence heals,
and if we dissolve… we become a story
told between tide and ebb.
And the meeting was not mere dissolution,
but a subtle exchange of qualities—
fresh water, when it touches salt,
does not lose its purity… it learns vastness,
and salt, when it embraces sweetness,
softens… as if it has tasted tenderness.
So are the lovers—
neither fades into the other in loss,
but each draws sweetness from the other;
she becomes more tender through him,
and he becomes gentler through her,
until when they meet…
they are no longer as they were,
but more beautiful than before.
The ululations of roses in garden corners
rise like wings of joy,
calling out:
O lovers whose breaths have met
at the edge of different destinies,
come, let us crown this embrace
with garlands of light and fragrance.
So longing falls like metaphor,
language bends in a gesture of yearning,
and similes dance
like butterflies conversing with dew,
until the meeting becomes a metaphor
not explained… but lived.
And there—
where the sea is no longer sea,
nor the rain merely rain—
the lovers melt into one another,
as if they were a single question
that answered itself
with an embrace.
Glory be to the One who ordained this meeting with wisdom—
in the mingling of sweet and salt lies a hidden secret;
it purifies the sea and renews its pulse,
and teaches the heart that in difference there is life.
Between a drop lost within the waves
and a sea that holds loss with mercy,
wisdom is born:
what we fear as dissolution
may be the beginning of purity.
So you who see in meeting an end—
reflect…
how ending becomes eternity
when it rests in the grace of God.
