Ibn Yaqut…the spring of poetry
In his spring and in the midst of the company of poetry, he was Rabih bin Yaqut, may God bless him and grant him a spacious paradise, the knight who rode the backs of poetry and in the arenas of sparring he was the free one who stared at the words as if they were butterflies chasing the light and moving on in the distance out of love for life and love for the deep meaning of the sea in poetry. A rhyme for a wave that moves the poem’s conscience and spreads a glow in the heart of the beloved.
I remember this giant, and I remember his gentle joke, as is his poem when he visited me with the great poet Hamad Bushahab. It was as if the two men represented joy, friendliness, and kindness to those who knew him and to those who were united with him by the word. I used to feel warmth when I listened to excerpts from their poetry. The poem was like a breeze that moved their hearts. In poetry, they were a blessed place. They were, first and foremost, two statures that raised everyone who sat with them and everyone who listened to the bright poetic images they recited with the taste of Arabic coffee, which they preferred when they visited me in the cultural section of “Al-Ittihad” newspaper.
Today Ibn Yaqut walks out carrying a poem that is the greatest epic in the conscience of every great poet, and Ibn Yaqut’s poem is the homeland and the people of the homeland. How many times he spoke about this country and that citizen with love preceded by advice and affection followed by a link between two hearts, a poet who immerses his heart in water. History, and a poem that has roots in the earth and branches in the sky, and between them resides the conscience of an inspired poet who sees in poetry what a lover sees in his beloved, and looks at the poem as a lover looks into the eyes of his lover.
There is no doubt that the passing of Rabih bin Yaqut constitutes a void in the Nabataean poem, and there is no doubt that the absence of this giant will bring tears to hearts and tears to eyes, but our consolation lies in his rich treasure that he will leave for generations, and all I hope is that the Ministry of Culture, as it is, will pay attention to the legacy of Ibn Yaqut. Rubies, and you are working to collect them, preserve them, and take care of them so that they can be presented for study, research, and investigation, because they are a treasure that abounds with the wisdom of a poet, the words of a creator, the skill of a knight, the gallantry of a sailor, and the virtue of a guardian of the poem and the fulfiller of its humanitarian project. I am certain that the ministry led by a young and ambitious minister will not forget Ibn Yaqut, nor will it go beyond his stage, as it is the most important poetic stage that we lived through, its knights lived through, we read them, we read them, and we loved them sincerely and spontaneously. Because they entertained us with the sincerity of poetry and the friendship of poems, those who deserve all our reverence deserve to be preserved in our hearts and not on our paths.
These are those who placed fruits on the branches of our feelings, those who taught us how the word has the secret of revelation when purified from scratches, these followed the paths of poetry just as horses follow the arenas of coronation, as dreams follow the places of drowsy goals, and just as spontaneity follows the homes of soft hearts.
May God have mercy on Ibn Yaqut and place him in spacious gardens, and grant his family patience and solace, and may God place him in the company of righteous saints.
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