1. O people of Ramah and its meadows, I entrust
Myself to you, though you’ve departed or not

2. Don’t let my eyes sleep, and their lids
Will weep if you keep them awake and bemused

3. Pay no heed to the envious if they slander
Do not do with your lives, do not do

4. Where is the care and sympathy from you?
Days that brought us together in Ramah’s dwellings

5. Where are the old covenants I made with you?
Rather, where is that first affection?

6. If I had a share of you, my heart would not
Be writhing on embers of sorrow and grief

7. If I had patience, I would have endured, but
I did not know on the day we parted what to do

8. How much this yearning for the tents and around them
The horsemen of Aamir and Lushayj, now faded

9. I’ve become like Hussein, melting from
Thirst, while around him flows the chained Euphrates

10. Or like Jonah, when he angrily left his people
And next morn was in the whale’s belly, shackled

11. Perhaps al-Mufaddal has some kindness
Like the old days, as he is the gracious benefactor