1. Alas! Did you ask the open desert plains
About those young men and young women

2. And the flow of the ponies’ reins that look as if they were
The tracks of snakes over the flat land

3. And the rowing of the ships closer to its coast
Than its sea and continuous raids

4. Where the hearings barely awaken from
The chanting of lutes and deterring the audacious

5. Verily I bear the burden of loving Qatif
And her inhabitance surpasses my sighs

6. When I receive news I see in it my own stairs
A child, peers, and offspring

7. The ultimate goal of my request and purpose of my death
Is that I reside in those flats

8. So the clouds water when their caravan carries
Those vast plains and wide fields

9. And the torrential rain passes through the valleys flooding
From Unayk to Nabkah

10. Until it is clad with beauty and its hills dressed
With bright wildflowers

11. My friend, it appears to me with you
An issue that embarrasses my verses

12. Nothing more trivial than it except that I
Count it among the biggest crowds

13. So I associated it with you, and it is sending a
Silvery golden-tipped turban

14. That describes the cheeks of eggs—the rest of its color
And buds amid the redness of apples

15. Or the color of your white clothes when they are washed
And their return reddened with hems

16. So pardon and overlook the offense—verily from
The virtues of dignified is pardoning the lapses

17. Since the one who asks the easy from you is like one who
Buys rain with one of its drops

18. And I swear by the robed pilgrims of Mina
And the standing of pilgrims from Arafat

19. And what was tossed there from some man’s hair
And what sheep’s blood was shed there

20. Had I not believed you would buy
I would not have exploited people’s praises

21. I would not have turned the face of my hope toward you, no, and not
Opened with any request to you

22. And even if time has hurt my absence
Or if days went beyond my youth

23. I protect—from praising the ignoble—my poetry aloof
And shorten before them my steps

24. And seek help from an untouched maiden daughter of Suweid
For the honorable things my words produced

25. If Mount Dha Al-Nur’s poet recited to her she would
Nullify what my verses delivered

26. Send good tidings to me of bliss yet to come
And receive the blessed feast honoring

27. Ramadan’s fast and prayers
And make use of the reward you were given for the