1. I raised the whip just yesterday in a way
That made the gazelles panic when its knot crackled.

2. My whip remained in my saddle bag while my shoes
Remained studded as I raced in verse across the land.

3. Envying camels tore it to pieces and cut through
The soles beneath the leather of its straps.

4. A gray one from them creaked like a ship
Carrying on until the months of her pregnancy increased.

5. She harbored a tenderness for it beyond compare,
Like a downy cloak whose nap pleases hands.

6. When two years had passed after her separation
From the udder and the she-camel speckled with henna that nourished her,

7. She was sleek, a smooth worker racing wide across the land,
Swelling when the valleys poured out their generosity.

8. The race driver prodded her beyond her years
With a goad to heights three times her own.

9. She sensed the scent of musk as if it were
A Yemeni perfume whose essence intoxicates.

10. She dived down from peaks in dives that bared
For her, in a night of blockades, the whiteness of their rocks.

11. An arrow slipped between two ribs that it had pried apart.
It was deflected by the palm of one who shoots without aiming.

12. They were amazed at her pace like that of al-Sabri’s.
Neither the earth nor its dust had dried from it.

13. She bounded like the does of the sand grouse, as if
Those slender ghosts flowed over the cold.

14. I brought out my camel unburdened, as though she was
The ribs of a fold whose poles rose into the heights.