As I mentioned earlier about the poems I have received from my readers, I am sharing a poem today by Nizar Qabbani, “Beirut, the Mistress of the World” -

“Beirut, the Mistress of the World
We confess before the One God
That we were envious of you
That your beauty hurt us
We confess now
That we’ve maltreated and misunderstood you
And we had no mercy and didn’t excuse you
And we offered you a dagger in place of flowers!
We confess before the fair God
That we injured you, alas; we tired you
That we vexed you and made you cry
And we burdened you with our insurrections.”

O Beirut,
The world without you won’t suffice us
We now realize your roots are deep inside us,
We now realize what offence we’ve perpetrated.”