Al-Jilnar - lbn Hani al-Andalusi

In tender age amid green branches
the pomegranate tree’s daughter looked
like the heart of a falcon or of a hawk
left over by an eagle in its nest,
or like blood gushing from her slit throat
or as if she’d grown up in a land of embers
or been watered by a stream of wine
or as if the times had spared her time's hardhships.
She blossomed like a flowering young breast
and showed her red gums through a smile
that tasted like the encounter of two lovers
who have lived a long time apart.

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lbn Hani al-Andalusi (c.934 - 973) Libya (born Spain)
Source: Poems for the Millennium, Volume Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature, Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour, University of California Press, 2013