1. You changed my eyes that were full of tears to happy eyes, O Eid
So my eyelids overflowed with what overflowed to gloom

2. I used to be worried, anxious, with no patience
So you increased my worries and confusion twofold

3. I hoped your white night would be bright
But why has it lined my eyes with darkness?

4. To the point where I forgot the joy I was used to
And an ugly day makes you forget good days

5. If you were to see me in the morning today when they went out
Two bereaved ones crying while I cry around them

6. I wore nothing but deep sorrows
And I sacrificed no one but my bloody self

7. And I went out to my visitors fearing
That the cheerful-faced among them would greet me

8. Wearing new clothes like he used to wear
The same clothes as my son on the morning of Eid a year ago

9. The beloved whom, if I fulfilled his request
He would attain my neck and miss your neck, O shooter

10. It's as if I didn't speak to an eloquent one from you
And didn't see you right before my eyes

11. And didn't hear you reciting the dhikr at dawn
In David's voice with perfect articulation

12. I imagined perfect virtues in you
That delighted me at first but didn't delight me in the end

13. Praise be to God, the ordainer diverted from you
What the predetermined measures of annulment and ratification have taken

14. I will answer whoever consults with a strange matter
While my mind is between finding and blaming

15. Thinking of meanings I used to hear
From you that confused my mind and comprehension

16. I don't engrave your name on seals passionately
My heart deserves it more than the engraving of seals

17. It's as if no separation ever came between our intimacy
So the letter Alif was devoted to longing from the letter Laam

18. My craving was in my tears and in my soul
To the point where I was exposed by this neighbour and that reproacher

19. I wish tears would flow and sighing would appear
In my solitude like the most loyal of doves

20. How many times has your grave admonished me
And your lingering spirit guided me with guidance

21. If anyone other than God had wronged me in you, and I
Had grown old or my thumb had been injured

22. Then I would have sought vengeance, while around me a formidable army
Marched, and the sea of death roars around it

23. With a Faisal among the swords of God that execute sharply
Whose attacks do not fail even if they do not succeed in striking

24. But the measures passed that carried out this bereavement in you
Against which any blade or cleaver are useless

25. When I observe the dead struck by death, I don’t see
Myself differentiating between a hyena and a wild cat

26. So look tomorrow; will its barrier hold back accidents
Or the most high ascendance of Bahram?

27. They will collapse and God will extinguish their light
Even if the survival of the eminent sun were delayed

28. How honest people would be if, when asked
About any life now passed, they said: “Delusions of dreams”

29. A person is a mere letter and his eraser is his death
And his lifetime is as short as a spear’s throw or a blink

30. I have lost two servants of the Wealthy: my father and my son
So time has guaranteed me bitterness until swallowing darkness

31. They were my two sanctuaries where I felt secure, but oh
How I substituted my violation for my devotion to them!

32. So I have here no stone, no loved one
No confidant to befriend me, no protector

33. So the latter replaced the former, yet some of him remains
And you are the pride of my uncles and paternal aunts

34. He grew up resembling me in glory and resembling his parents in growth
Then he turned away from his father and mother, the growing sleeper

35. No bone mended until they melted in sorrow
Except my crimes that took away my good deeds

36. I judged that my son’s attainment of death was imminent, but
The rulings of my Lord refused except to nullify my rulings

37. The minds of the world’s children went astray, they indeed clung
To it with a rope of hopes and dreams

38. You cry over it while it laughs at you
So you become satisfied while it is the essence of anger and blame

39. Shame on it! It is a mother whose nobility
Lies in deprivation of compassion or cutting of family ties

40. Life is enjoyed transiently while worries are lost
They were tempted so they bought ignorance with dreams

41. The self-concealers won goodness while the weight
Of my heavy burdens and sins shackled me behind them

42. Why should I cry for my son while sins will
Humiliate me tomorrow and he will be in honour and care?

43. Why didn’t I cry for myself and what crimes
I have committed and seek the tears of a blamer?

44. I have no safety except with faith the day after tomorrow
And no salvation for me but through my Islam

45. That is, if the Sustainer grants me success and makes me fortunate
In both abodes with steadfastness and guidance

46. So that I may win, alongside my son, where He settled him
With a mercy from Him which I hope for and favour

47. A promise to Al-Mustafa is inevitable even if
I had sworn against it the most decisive oath

48. They said: “Restrain your tears—can crying return
A child to a bereaved one or a righteous father to orphans?”

49. So I said: “I shall restrain it”—and sorrows command it—
“Then how can the tears of an anxious wanderer be repelled?”

50. I reckoned that my eyes would heal my burning with weeping
While they were tasked with igniting therein

51. O gem among gems of essence and pure mark
of goodness from the essence of fasting

52. The birds that protect your company hovered around me thirsty
And I saw them to be unsatisfied

53. They were searching for you, and they said: “Where do we land
And how do we understand without being made to understand?”

54. So rise—the children have waited expecting
A pledge from you of absolute freedom and feeding

55. Where is your exhaustion for the writers, striving,
While people are between wakefulness and sleep?

56. And where is your sewing of the guarded garment when
They leave to sew garments and sleeves ?

57. And where are your verses that filled my eye with blood
And hurt my heart with some pain?

58. And where is your word to the bereaved woman: “Reserve yourself
Until I recover with my wooden writing tablet and my pen”

59. By God, I will forget your beautiful life but not
Your eloquent speech when they speak incomprehensibly

60. Nor your recitation to them of the chapters
Articulated with clear pronunciation and assimilation

61. O Lord of meanings I understood with discernment, they said:
“The interpretation of Ibn Salam is preserved”

62. How many spirits and bodies you have left
Between longing and disease without discrimination

63. Are we to you mere bodies without spirits
Or mere spirits without bodies?

64. You preceded your tired father, and his worries
Are devices prepared for lamps and wicks

65. We would have ransomed you had we seen a science
To be ransomed from fate that comes with signs

66. Alas! The uncertainty of every castle is not known
Nor that of every high and robust structure

67. And people’s endeavours are diverse and their matter
Is by the hands of an Able One of the Unseen, the All-Knowing

68. This one is dead and that alive for an appointed time
And this poor and that rich with fortunes

69. The best thing a human can gain with wealth
Is gratitude for it and patience at adversity

70. I was patient with fate except at the loss of a father
And a son whose ransom is my soul and people

71. Who can support me now that the limit has passed, after them both?
Who can invoke the prayers of devoted obedient ones for me?

72. May God’s eternal prayers be upon them both
As well as my tears and depressions full of gloom