My fault, my greatest fault,
O sea-eyed princess,
was to love you
as a child loves.
The greatest lovers,
after all, are children
My first mistake
and not my last
was to live
in the taste of wonder
ready to be amazed
by the simple span
of night and day,
and ready for every woman
I loved to break me
into a thousand pieces to make
me an open city,
and to leave me behind her
as dust.
My weakness was to see
the world with the logic of a child.
And my mistake was dragging
love out of its cave into the open air,
making my breast
an open church for all lovers.
Nizar Qabbani