To Cyprus let us go

Shukriya

Like ships on the Bosporos

Let us blossom on the sea

Let the wind be our freedom

From one world

Into another

Let us cross

Let longing grow

Like a flower

And ripen

With the years

Like the fruit

Of my interminable

Love

Shukriya

And let love

Like a sailor in mythical lands

Drop its anchor

In this ground

In which it blooms

Like an exiled flower

Here

Where we can be at home

As we can be

Nowhere else

For we are strangers,

You and I

In this sky

That turned earth

So much like

Our own

Here let us live

Here let us die

As we can do

Nowhere else

 

To Cyprus let us go

Shukriya

Like barques on the Nile

Let us blossom on the sea

Let the bridge of seven years

Be crossed

As from one world we flow

Into another

Like sun and moon

That embrace

In the dawn

One shadow

That follows

The other

On Larnaka's salt lake

Let the birds tell me

Of you

As they walk

Upon the waters

That drink their rose-coloured

Chant

Tell me

O dancing nomads of heaven

Have you seen

Shukriya?

On your way

Across time

Have you crossed

The river of

Her beauty?

God,

Give us tears

So we may cry

My life itself I can deny

But not my love

Shukriya

Let my heart

In your beauty's shade

Hope

Against hope

That it may meet in passing by

Your heart

As it did

Once before

 

To Cyprus let us go

Shukriya

Like dhows on the Red Sea

Let us blossom

Let us sail forth

Into a morning

That sacrificed

Yesterday

Upon seas

That sing with white hearts

Dhu'l Qarnain's

Blazen glory

For in the iris of this ocean

There is a bridge

Into every world

Let us seek

Shukriya

What can be found

In this life

And let us then

Leave behind

What can be left

For my life weighs

No more

Than one grain of my love

Shukriya

Don't count, love

Our days

For wherever a wound

Does break open

It is Paradise that bleeds

Love suffers

Of itself

Shukriya

And to itself it cries:

Let love be its own price

To Cyprus let us go

Shukriya

May death take

What he will

For my life

Is your love

In the name of

Paradise

That lay before us

Once before
 

 

(Dhu'l Qarnain --- the name by which Alexandre the Great is referred to in Islam)