1. My sister's handwriting I did not know
My sister always writes to me

2. She told me yesterday about my family and
The agony of longing and the remoteness of home

3. What will she tell me today?
What else, I wonder, did she not say

4. I opened the letter.. I did not find
Anything but one line.. abbreviated

5. I tried hard to decipher some of it
My sister wrote in haste

6. It has something...vague about Ali
Maybe soon it will become clear

7. And I stopped.. and did not finish.. and in me
Are the tremors of the pleading frightened one

8. And Ali appeared to me wearing
The finest threads of dawn

9. Playful gesture, swaggering gait
Smooth speech, sweet shyness

10. The smile asks in its bud
About the timing of pouring kisses

11. An appearance that greeted the world with it
Gentle spirit, far-sighted hopes

12. How much he came to explain his dreams to me
And his wishes for the future

13. He told me proudly that he
Knows the way to a better life

14. That he hates my shackles which
Weakened my resolve and stilled my feet

15. Tomorrow he will give his village
The knowledge of science and the effort of work

16. And he will build his house in a forest
That stretches over the mountainside

17. And I will take pride in him tomorrow
And see him as a model for man

18. I returned to the letter which has
Nothing but one line.. abbreviated

19. And I struggled.. perhaps I can find
In it what takes away my agony

20. And if its meaning seals off
My fervent illusion.. all paths

21. My eyes drowned in its letters
And slipped shredded from my fingers

22. My sister's heart.. I did not know it
My sister always wishes me well

23. Why does she slaughter me with
Her words.. her son died.. Ali died