I will build for you each night
A palace luminous
With whole blocks of emerald
And diamond stones.
Shall it be skyblue as your eyes,
Or green as your wishes:
Be, and the palace too shall be.
Sing softly, and obedient it will take you
And fly aloft like a drunken bird,
And rise on a thread of light,
seeking two sunken stars;
driven on by the seconds of time,
Their eyes closed in the discourse of night.
When together you have traversed
The expanse, and the oceans of light,
and reached the dome of heaven…
Said Aql, born on 4 July 1911, Lebanese poet.