1. The wandering tribe rejoined
And the place welcomed you, a place of sojourn

2. The winds uncovered it, revealing
A secluded refuge, like the dark nuclei of pearls

3. Autumn's foliage bestowed upon it a dress
Of fine, soft cloth or completion

4. Amid ruins with oppression
Like partridges’ anklets, anklets of doves

5. It was once a dwelling for us
A home we occupy every year

6. How much wildness and desolation in it
Were contained in a valley or plateau

7. Your memory of what is past
Is like a dream’s conversation

8. How excellent is visiting where
Only a hint can be seen from the turban

9. As you saw before recovery
The protector, most sagacious of servants

10. Evil hastened and did not wait
For slumbering fate’s veins to awaken

11. In ravines of bending necks
Where birds throng, fasting like ostriches

12. Then he turned away into a valley
Where the thickets echo with frogs

13. As you glance from between my eyelids
Penetrating from my dense lashes

14. As you battled a panic
Started by a timid fox

15. Cooing to one who has settled
His color that of an old gown

16. Or like an ostrich resting
Having satisfied itself on a sandhill

17. Head down between stones
Like scattering dry plants

18. Gathering fruits of its plains
From scattered seeds or pairs

19. Grown stronger whenever it sensed
Tidings while the familiar one slept

20. Cautiously, as its flock
Took shade beneath the roots of peace

21. Avoiding the sun with skill
Like the prudent with hands that plaster

22. The caller to prayers proclaimed openly
And I was stunned, like one clubbed

23. When the tribe drove off deer
Frightened by women’s ululations

24. Every small bird among them
Grey, recently taking wing

25. Gives the company an air
As if set on solid mounts

26. Having carpeted each clan’s valley
On ponds, like those of Hijaz

27. Whose edges are reddened by bones
The upper halves are covered

28. So they seem Syrian waterskins
While lower folds are tucked beneath

29. Like a Yemeni’s gathered turban
On the bumps are spindles

30. Like tents that block out sunbeams
With cheeks like pendulums that

31. Do not conceal the swaying of a dewdrop
Every lazy one dozing at noon

32. And barn owl of a murky night
A mare I imagined when it whinnied

33. Had the flowing mane of a steed
And wilderness wherein jackals

34. Were incited by its howls and yelps
I took the wolf by surprise there

35. Quick, wrapped in a face veil
As if a nervous pony startled

36. By chaos between composure and panic
I have been cloaked in ignorance

37. Beyond journeys, like encircling clouds
Leaving behind the Pleiades, unknown

38. After the knots of destiny were tied
A forgetful one who, when happy

39. Foretells with the soothsayer’s truth
Or with a sword stripped for people

40. After veils, like drying broth
What I had toyed with met

41. What comes when the hour is grave
Like the reddish antelope in its hue

42. Gleaming, like Damascus without Damascus
Confusion, like the warbling

43. Of a rainswept porch at night
It wiped the ground with its briskness

44. Like the gait of a stomping autocrat
I built it a shelter and it went on

45. Seeking the lowest station
A night when the north wind raged

46. With piercing, chilly breezes
Like a blossom whose wetness beneath

47. Youthful lips is preserved
Dew lingered over it

48. A guest of plates in a desolate place
Shaking off the dust from the curve

49. Of every prostate form’s leading rein
Then it rose picking a seed

50. Between the shoulders of crumbled hills
When dogs attacked

51. Like a boy’s anklets
So it fled stumbling

52. Its wrists dragging in the sand
And a she-wolf struck out at it

53. Baying with the cry of a doe
Jaws with edges

54. Like the baskets of dough-makers
Greed personified when it grinned

55. Baring its canine teeth
It seized him, and he screamed out

56. With the sword’s straight blade
And it fell to the ground, rejected

57. With fate against the doves’ decree
And it went on, its kin resembling

58. A ragged coat between tent pegs
Was that a wounded gazelle

59. Lonely, struggling, in pain?
The beast ate its young, so it does not

60. Ask shadows for anything but flight
Fear gathered it to a lair

61. After the darkness spread its cover
Closing itself off from its pastures

62. A circlet broken after being clasped
Now it is silent like foreign seeds

63. Fleeing the domains of villains
Those first females left it

64. With traits after beauty’s perfection
It descended to water carried

65. By a bare mount, steed without stripe
With its saddlebags on its sides

66. An ancient, lasting wall
It went down a ravine and lingered

67. Searching out the time of resolution
In ravines it dug, as

68. The tribe dug the pit of doom
Then it went like the lovesick

69. And did not slake the thirst of passion
The waste abused it, a lean

70. Wretched wretch, dresser of hides
Swallowing white stew

71. In a pot between blazing stones
It suffered summer with a shelter

72. That devoured it when the heat was intense
So sweat was its drink

73. Of pure ostrich sweat
Then its fate was to wander

74. Slow, stumbling, led by destiny
As it crept to the watering hole

75. Crowded with the gazelles of nightfall
Or water with thickets shaken

76. At night by carriers of burdens
One thing leads it astray, the other cautious

77. Avoiding harm before night comes
It found him, so it was deluded

78. Phantoms above it like soaring kites
It met a long serpent

79. Vigilant, tireless
Licking the ground, it has a stalk

80. Lean, crazed, wildly threshing
Hiding on level ground

81. Like an antelope between the acacias
If it catches prey, its people

82. Get the meat, eating leftovers
Or if it finds a bird, it lines them up

83. With the old, inedible skin, no food
So it threw it, confident

84. It was a hunter, if given game, bound to throw
And it knocked the arrow away from it

85. As it knocked away the water bearer
And it fled trembling, making the pebbles

86. Fly with the hawk’s swoop, the dove’s vigor
It roused fury, as the bombard

87. Does when slung by the catapult