1. Where is the poem whose verses are pottery
Compared to the poem whose verses are pearls

2. Though I have practiced it for a lifetime
I have never said anything boastful about it

3. Oh poetry, you were a weapon I used to defend
Myself from harm and with you I was victorious

4. I bid you farewell, detected in the scent
For soon I will depart from you

5. I have reached the peak of seventy
And the grave after this life awaits me

6. There are many imitators in poetry
And few who compose it as they feel it

7. Poetry is about to deteriorate from what
Thick-skinned people have forced on it, so it is dying

8. Reason is thoughtful and the heart impromptu
And nothing impromptu has a thoughtful reason

9. Indeed if you follow the path of life wisely
Then knowledge is the light reason lacks

10. Reason benefits from knowledge, not poetry
And the heart thrives on poetry, not knowledge

11. The heart is nourished by poetry's passions
And the head by knowledge's hearing and sight

12. The garden's nightingale, though its pulpit
Was there, is the preacher, endless in number

13. I found after the loved ones their burial ground
So it was in a spot enveloped in flowers

14. I am informed of life's affairs, and have
No knowledge beyond guesses of what comes after

15. My ties to the world and its bounty are dead
Bodies embraced by graves they dug

16. And the free have long fought with sensitivities
Guarded by a gang who never retreated

17. Indeed the graves, the helpless failed
To defend, in the land of injustice, so they killed themselves

18. Oppression tightens its grip on Iraq
On the people's freedom, until it almost erupted

19. Right will not cease flowing copiously
For it is from the wounds of weakness, pressed out

20. And if its tyranny does not liberate the people
Nothing liberates them but calamity and lessons

21. The people are like a volcano, containing magma
If it erupts, nothing will remain or scatter

22. And the people demand their usurped rights
So let the sword bring joy if fate does not

23. I do not praise the sword in my poetry, we
Are but sheep, neither sharp-clawed nor bold

24. Poetry will do what the spineless man
Cannot, if opposition becomes firm

25. It may strip the weakness from its arm
Or adorn one who cannot fight

26. Poetry has no glory in its competence
If people are distracted from it by frivolity and excess

27. We stumbled at the coda from paralysis
In us, and gangs attacked, but did not stumble

28. And no individual or family prospers
Unless they desist from human nature

29. I live in an age that rebukes the truthful
And praises none but the wicked and vile

30. The truthful are punished in their homelands
As if truthfulness were a sin

31. Why is our night gloomy and murky
Has it decided the moon will not rise?