1. I am afflicted, and know not how to explain
When asked, only moaning is my refrain

2. And when the cough persists, to torment me
I point with my right hand to my chest in pain

3. I force myself to take medicine
Though weakness makes it hard to sustain

4. My sighs pierce through to my inner soul
Acting like arrows shot with perfect aim

5. The fever makes my heart almost melt
Whenever it goes past one hundred-and-four in strain

6. My heart survived the arrows of sorrow
Saved by a girl of only thirteen

7. I swear, if she were like Gandharva*
Protecting her nest with a lioness' disdain

8. Or calm like Fatima al-Sughra**
In eloquence and faith she would reign

9. Then she'd be fit for one like me
In eloquence and faith we're the same

10. Then she'd be fit for one like me
In the sickness I feel every day without wane

11. Though pallor dressed her beauty in new light
Some pallor can adorn, enhance, and maintain

12. The illness withered not the cheek's red rose
Nor dimmed the radiance of her brow's domain

13. Just that was the charm of joy and delight
While this is the charm of sorrow and pain

14. I ask her: where has happiness gone?
And where is this grieving pallor from, whence it came?

15. Your voice still fills the air surrounding
And echoes still within neighbors remain

16. If today she shuns me, how often before
She welcomed my coming, joyous and fain!

17. How she cheered when she saw me, her messenger
Reliable, trustworthy, faithful and plain

18. Why today does she turn away her glance?
In her eyes reproach and blame remain?

19. As if in my hands lies the cure
Yet from healing I restrain

20. Woe to me! Did she think I bear
All her heart desires, contained?

21. My daughter, health's not a cloak
Like the cloak you're wearing, that I obtain

22. Nor is it for the ear a pendant unique
Nor a precious gem I cleverly gain

23. It's not a sweet in the market for sale
Nor a doll bought with hundreds in payment's chain

24. Rather, it's among affairs of the heavens
And the Lord of the heavens. Can you complain?

25. Gently, my daughter, think of your father
For I'm not like others, of water and clay terraine

26. My heart flows with tenderness like water
And inspires the bard's lute to sing lovesick refrain

27. It melts for the weeping babe's sobbing plaints
And yearns for the unborn child, still in membrane

28. It almost dissolves when hear the stranger's woe
So what of its state when children complain?

29. Misfortune battled my being, that harsh fate
And found in me an unrelenting disdain

30. It fought me through my children when they were young
And seized what it desired, destined and ordained

31. Little birds now scattered, their plumes gone
Leaving me like an imprisoned bird, chained

32. Their lives preoccupy, leaving me bereft
Their loss, a sorrow beyond words' explain

33. Not numbers made them cheap, the many lost
Nor mean the value of what choice remained

34. I think of their tomorrow and am possessed
By a latent grief, my breast to contain

35. If I die leaving them behind
They will inherit but poetry's lasting stain

36. My children owe me sorrow and duress
And I owe them a debt of sorrow and pain!