Kareem Abdullah, poem
Moderator 
WHEN I KISS YOU… SPRING AWAKENS*
My beloved…
Whenever I kiss you,
the butterflies of my soul awaken from a long sleep,
as if your lips were the first sun
to discover the dew
after an age of winters.
They rise, adorned with wings of light and fragrance,
rushing toward the mythical fields of your body,
not merely to touch beauty,
but to pollinate its blossoms
with seeds of a love that knows no extinction.
With every kiss,
the laws of the universe are transformed;
the stars draw nearer to the heart
than the pulse flowing through the veins,
and time becomes a child
playing in the gardens of your eyes.
And when my lips meet yours,
I hear the trees applauding
the arrival of the first spring,
and I see the rivers casting away
the weariness of their exiles,
flowing toward your sea
with an endless hymn.
You are not merely a woman
kissed by a lover…
You are the earth
when it discovers the true name of rain,
and the sky
when it learns from a butterfly
that flight itself
can be a prayer.
So let me kiss you
whenever the weight of the world
burdens your heart,
for one single kiss from you
is enough to release
the butterflies of my soul
into the vastness of your spirit.
Then the flowers of your mythical body
will bloom with colors
that spring itself has never painted before,
and love will be born again each time,
as though it were
the first creation of the world.
Kareem Abdullah - Iraq
