Like a small café on the street of strangers—
that’s love… its doors open to all.
Like a café that expands and
contracts with the weather:
if it pours with rain its customers increase,
if the weather’s fine, they are few and weary…
I am here, stranger, sitting in the corner.
[…]
It is raining now.
It is raining more than ever,
and you do not come in.

Mahmoud Darwish, “Like a Small Cafe, That’s Love” in Almond Blossoms and Beyond. Interlink Books, 2009 (transl. by Mohammad Shaheen)