1. In God's keeping what I find and what I lose,
Is this a boulder or is this a liver?

2. Grief can kill those whose loved ones became distant,
So what of those whose loved ones are lost?

3. The world flows on its cables, and thoughts follow it
With arguments justifying its course and creed.

4. The ignorance of free philosophers wearied me -
What does tomorrow conceal for them in its folds?

5. Expectations dragged on and their promises lingered,
Yet knots remained as they always were.

6. If only life and only death were a solace -
Neither the youth of twenty nor decrepitude.

7. If only the maid in the prime of youth were not plucked
Nor the old woman relying on her palms.

8. If only the eagles' lives were drained halfway -
And none were reserved for them in particular.

9. Greetings O mother of the Euphrates - a mother is titled
By what she delivers, not by what she breeds.

10. I could find no way to communicate her fervor
Other than a barrier, even if the tomb came between us.

11. With the soul, respond to her - it is a bond
Between lovers - what use is the body?

12. My tears would have been too proud had you not provoked tenderness,
I would have returned from the heat of tears desensitized.

13. I took off the garb of endurance that covered me
And the false claim that I am stoic was exposed.

14. I cried until those who don't know me cried,
I melted until a singing bird consoled me.

15. Just as a harsh stone burst into copious tears,
So did my hardened heart burst into tears.

16. To God we belong! A saying one finds solace in,
And the believers and disbelievers are equal in it.

17. Stretch out a hand to me that stretches out to you -
In life or in death we must unite!

18. We were like two predestined, faithful halves -
One's matter is hindered by the other's.

19. I spoke to your grave, draw from its depths
The state of a guest, hastening, seeking it.

20. An empty echo in my heart, desolate,
Returned the call of one who seeks company but finds none.

21. A specter enveloped me, nothing resembled it
Except your disheveled hair gathered around the face.

22. I threw my head into its folds, terrified,
Like I did when I despaired and clung.

23. If the bosom of my chest finds comfort
In a chest, time never fulfilled nor promised.

24. God does not forsake a quarter you reside in -
I reckon your grave is a garden lit by His light.

25. And your soul is a gazelle that frolics with it
When a lifeless soul tosses and turns, gloomy.

26. We were like a basil plant that harsh conditions
Uprooted. So its leaves are scattered, dispersed.

27. You sheltered my children with your wings, and were to them
A mouth when they woke, eyes when they slept.

28. So many rights that loyalty falls short of -
Can it be loyalty that I endure?

29. No malice nor taint found a place in her heart,
No wickedness nor envy.

30. She didn't harm her neighbor,
She turned to any good she was endowed with and was persecuted.

31. She didn't humiliate herself before any suitor
Nor make wealth and children conceited.

32. They said lightning came hastily, so I told them:
By God, had it been good, it would have tarried.

33. Lebanon's expanses narrowed with what had expanded
Upon me, and the summits and peaks closed in.

34. She who danced to the eyes with her vitality
During days when we were and life was prosperous.

35. A gloomy one who blows out memories that burn me
As if I were a naked man upon them.

36. By God, no bed nor shelter was permitted me
When you were announced dead, nor any land.

37. Where is the escape when memories chase me everywhere
Like the flight of birds returning over and over?

38. Are they the shadows that used to shelter us
Or the hills or the water we sipped?

39. Or are you present? Prone, then relieved, resting.
Visions were soon interrupted and differed -

40. And didn't last, except an hour, their duration.
I passed by the nymphs and weddings filled it,

41. Then returned while it shuddered like a demon's abode.
A wish - and I'm most miserable with it - that I not be

42. At her farewell, while she is in her coffin.
Maybe I'm a reader in the heat of its page

43. Of which emotions and passions are concealed?
And a hearer of a word that admonishes me

44. Or is she - God forbid - criticizing?
And a catcher of a passing glance through which

45. She is, in life and what I encountered in it, a support?