3.

Somewhere the wind is blowing,
I don't know where.
If I knew, I'd go there
To that range of mountains, that valley,
that canyon where the wind is blowing,
That khamsin that flows
Like a forgotten river,
That flows, though forgotten,
Though long ago forgotten.
Somewhere far away, in some unknown place,
That khamsin is lifting the raw sand,
And I am not there to see it,
to see how the wind lifts the sand.
If I could be there,
I could see how the sand lifts,
Flutters, waves like a thin veil,
Like a grey scarf, and beneath it
The empty land trembles like a girl.

And if I myself were that khamsin,
If I myself could go blowing over the mountain summits,
Over the valleys and the canyons,
I would blow away that grey sand,
Blow away the glittery rocks,
Blow away the somber gravel.
And slowly, out of the sand, out of the rocks, out of the gravel,
A few rosy fingers would appear,
And slowly arms and thighs would appear,
And breasts, and face, and finally the whole body:
A statue of a woman in pink marble,
Darkened in a few places, but not broken.
At last she would lay there naked
Beneath the veil of the wind,
Her body warm, but still,
Her nostrils filled with tiny seashells,
Her empty eyes fixed
On the distant depths of the sky.

And I would forever uncover her
From under the swift grey sand,
And I would look forever
On that beauty with its color of a rose.

Kasidas are Arab love poems.
The khamsin is a wind that blows out of the North African desert.