Mohammad's works 'highlight Nabati poetry characteristics'

After Lasting Darkness

Shone and glowed after lasting darkness

From you, my life I saw its sun and moon

By broken tracks and teeming hordes

In the blazing sun of deserts fierce their heat

You were the beginning and became the end

Quit the sweetness and bitterness of life before you

The hour of yearning passed between war and peace

Slayed me your eyes, oh how artful

Appeared your face to guide through deserts of love

A glance released from them shackles my soul

So many conflicts, then resolution, after which...conflict

In the course of nights, its good and bad

From your features my eyes bear no fast

In the grace of beauty, how sweet to break fast

Who engaged always my thoughts, yet slept unfeeling of my needs

I wish through my eyes saw, who engaged them

- A poem by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, read at a soiree.

Emirati poet Mohammad Al Habsi observes the recent experiments in Nabati poetry and those of several rulers and Shaikhs whose poetry have now become well-known like that of the late Shaikh Zayed and Shaikh Mohammad.

"Shaikh Mohammad's poetic encounters with a number of great poets are now well-known," he said. "But he is not just a Nabati poet; he is much more than that - a visionary.

Shaikh Mohammad writes with a particular vision and understanding.

Shaikh Mohammad highlights an important characteristic of Nabati poetry, namely that this particular genre is most expressive and it presents poets with "ample opportunities to expound without the constraints of linguistic precision which would have been the biggest hurdle had the classical format been used," he says.