1. You lived among people as a stranger, wandering
You died among people the death of a stranger

2. And people have always been cruel
The wretched among them have no share

3. Had you been one who fills their stomachs
They would have grieved and rent their clothes

4. Or been one who fills their purses
A thousand orators would have stood at your bier

5. They would have purified your reputation of any stain
And moistened the bier with their tears

6. But you were a porter; they did not hope for anything from you
And did not fear your awesome might

7. You dipped your pure loaf
In the sweat of the toiler and tears of the heartbroken

8. You were not an extortioner, my brother
Rather you had a legitimate, if meager, right

9. So no one shed a tear for you
No sympathetic heart melted for you

10. And no lover bade you goodbye, though
The farewell of a lover makes hardship easier to bear

11. Your luggage and the bier did away
With the solemn majesty of formidable death

12. And in them, had they been fair, was honor
And a better witness and goodness and grace

13. The people of the road passed by, paying no attention
To the neglected one, discarded on the roads

14. How many times you asked people for water, but
No compassionate person answered your call

15. Or you sought a doctor’s help, but
You couldn’t afford it, so the doctor fled

16. Or maybe you tried to make a will, or wanted to,
But no relative was near to hear you

17. You left behind many little children
Waiting for your return in hope that you would relent

18. Yearning for you in the hunger that wasted them
While you were absent from them for so long

19. My rhyming couplets in their frugality
Find in your example fertile ground

20. Your cold stillness stirred them up
My wrathful verses trail flames

21. O you who provoke vengeance in my chest
You made beauty seem ugly in my eyes

22. I hated silk clothes and their manners
For your tattered robe and its manners

23. And the rigid corpse in its aridity
Made the soft fresh branch hateful to me

24. And your splendid silence, my gloominess,
Made the tender melodious voice repugnant to me

25. You made me scorn to live in a horde
Devoid of mercy, barren and lifeless

26. Your woeful life dramatized
In its final wretched act

27. And people watched the details
But no watcher grasped them

28. Alas! Its opening passed me by
And its scenes were veiled from me

29. Oh if only you had seen it whole
Melting in my passion and sorrow

30. I am of the people, but in my tenderness, I am
Far, aloof from them

31. I weep for the oppressor out of kindness
While the oppressor’s dagger is my drink

32. To part from these people is a celebration—do not
Grieve, and the comfort after hardship comes