1. Ask the embers if they have become dear and beautiful after being inflamed and tortured
I disbelieved in it until it yearns and tortures

2. And do not deprive me of an ember after an ember
So this heart has not withered until it flares up

3. And the heart has not attained meaning except that
It wallowed in the agony of afflictions and tossed and turned

4. Bring me a sorrow that has not passed through elation
For I would not be pleased with a sorrow from you that is not tried

5. And make it uniquely lonely and sympathize
With its hidden secret so that it does not get divulged

6. Safeguarded like the most precious concealed pearl
So I deposited it in the most hidden of treasures and hid it

7. And make it oozing with agony and choose
For its pains what was harshest and strangest

8. And make it like an artist creating his masterpieces
And he glances at them delighted, enthralled, admiring

9. For sorrow is but like beauty, I love it
And indulge in it, however faraway and difficult it was

10. Your imagination, o brown one, passed by my estrangement
So it greeted and we welcomed at length and welcomed

11. Your appearance was unveiled to my two eyelids and a vision
And lips like the outstretched branches of basil

12. So my passion protected your honor out of dignity
And intended what it desires but was awed

13. And some passion is like rain, if it overflows it glitters
And some passion is like rain, if it overflows it ruins

14. I see your beautiful specter in everything I see
I became alone but did not find an escape from it

15. Passion gave me two cups: despair and bounty
What a specter that comforted and tired me out

16. And it mingled with my eyelids on the pillow and quilt
So it was closer to my eyes than the eyelids

17. We complained to it about the brown one until it grieved for us
And we dared until we blamed so it blamed

18. And it handed me a breeze from the cedars of Lebanon
So it perfumed my sorrows, refreshed, and reddened them

19. And it bent the two branches of the willow spreading them
So it cradled my dreams, sweetened, and fragranced them

20. And did the two branches point out to me Labana’s hill
Dearer than bliss and sweeter and more delicious

21. Handsome than the infants, if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have feared
-Old age- to distance and wander

22. The stars wish the flowers if they were bloody
So the elite would choose from it and play

23. And I have treasures of affection and mercy
My bliss is that it tempts them and robs them

24. It does injustice and some injustice is sweet and loved
And I haven’t seen before the child beloved injustice

25. And it gets angry sometimes and relents, and it’s enough for us
That it relents upon us and gets angry

26. And if illness befell it, I wished I
Was a sacrifice for it, the one ill and tortured

27. And it craves what it desires as if
By its craving it indicates, repeats, and elaborates

28. It brings us feasts, a feast when it walks
And a feast when it meows and a feast when it loved

29. Like the kittens’ dangle, if it went hunting
My eyes and heart would pour for it to drink

30. And I prefer it be saturated and full, pampered
And I thirst in bliss over it and deprive myself

31. And I kiss in a darkness of glories its mouth
So I pluck a star from it then a star

32. It sleeps on the edges of my heart in its cradle
Silken from Yemeni brocade gilded

33. And I lower my eyelids a canopy shading it
And I wish they were more affectionate and curved

34. And it tasked me to accept tyranny patiently
And to desire to coddle it and intimidate it

35. So I gave the whims of flirtations my help
As I followed an excellent, noble, lofty stud

36. It refused for long to be led..and coaxing it
For a time a chick from wings and companionship

37. I was gentle with preference, old and young
So I spoiled it a lot and pleased it, a father

38. And hearts beat in my heart, many
As if it was one nation so it branched out

39. And O Lord for the sake of childhood alone
Send down blessings of peace East and West

40. And ward off harm from every nation even if
It is ungrateful and love it even if it is sinful

41. And protect the children’s laughter O Lord it is
If it trills in the dreary sand, it greens

42. The angels did not beget the likes of them
Nor did its eternity -I seek God’s forgiveness- beget

43. And O Lord make every child beloved so he does not see
Even if he frowned with worry, a face frowning

44. And prepare in every heart playfulness for him
And in every meeting, many welcomes then welcomes

45. And O Lord: the heart is Yours, if You will
You return the heart fluid, quenched, fertile

46. And O Lord in the straitening of time and its difficulty
I see patience wider and dearer horizons

47. A crucifix on the winking of flirtations and their debauchery
And if it weren’t for the kittens’ dangles, I would be more stoic

48. And I have a friend whose affection I bound
And he was not a madman of arrogance to befriend

49. Strangers but I am loyal and he did not reciprocate
And he contested the bond of affection until it snapped

50. And O Lord here is my mind and its wounds
Will remain from You a hidden secret

51. For I have not known but the graves of those I loved
And but for my guide in the darkness of death, vanished

52. And I have not shed in the pouring of tears that
The tears of the eyes were created but to pour

53. But I have in protecting my tears, a school
So whoever willed endured it and whoever willed avoided it

54. And O Lord: my sorrows have illumination as if
I poured the pure gold on them

55. The star of dawn watches them for a glance
And I emerge from their heights observing and awaiting

56. So I dropped thousands of curtains as if
I stretch over a state of light disappearing

57. So the star of dawn disappeared in despair and I do not see
Upon its horizon - even our minarets reddened -

58. And sorrows may dazzle and they are difficult
But the most beautiful of them is a digging sorrow

59. And O Lord: the path of life I have walked
And I did not deviate from it if I knew what is unseen

60. And I have a homeland I magnified safe from blame
And I hold it more precious to be called - despite its sin blameworthy

61. And I hold it so dear that when I spread my wings
I pamper the disappointed hope in them

62. It denied me in old age - and not rarely -
So from some of its bounties, old age and youth

63. And it is its right that I carry the wound content
And it is its right that I do not blame and object

64. And I was not vexed an inch by old age, for I
Saw dawn like a bare sword turn white

65. My heart is torn by distance from those I love
But I saw humiliation rougher borne

66. And I beseech history, stingy towards my nation
To erase what it recompensed with, not to inscribe

67. And O Lord: honor does not wane from Umayyad
And O Lord: ignite the East’s glow, do not die out

68. And I love the Levant’s lightning if it’s raining
Affectionate in its irrigation, even if barren

69. And I love the fertile plain, lush, fertile
Its ears mirthful and I love it barren

70. I have no wishes in robots and demolish
Whoever smelled a fragrance, smelled for me in it wishes

71. God watered on Latakia’s coast a shore
Meadows for my dreams and songs and a playground

72. And I accept my lineage from the high poplars, for it
Defied and towered every star and tired them

73. And Jebel el Arab’s soil poured a fragrance as if
Poured over a grave from my heart spilled and melted

74. And it greeted, it did not miss protecting its clouds
And it brought to Homs a lush life, good

75. And it prospered in Hawran a plain and towering
And it blossomed with bounty, rich, cultivated

76. And it sparkled in Al Jazira’s land melody
Rivaling in irrigation and beauty, melody

77. Clouds from East and West it gathers
From the wind a shepherd, violent, bursting

78. For it lightning a whip, no cloud bellows
To scatter unless it cuts into it and ignites it

79. It composes them for a time and they erupt savagely
And it tried, did not despair until they overcome

80. It rumbles lengthwise and widthwise the sky
Rivaling its huge humped shoulders, shoulders

81. So I did not know, is the sky the flock’s mother
From the clouds or the veils’ mother wooly

82. It coquetted to the desert before pouring
If the desert had saliva, it would have dribbled

83. And dawn’s rising was grieved without being sated
But it moistened the sands and wetted them

84. And it intoxicates the desert to witness the approaching clouds
And to enjoy it and to expect it

85. As if the nature of clouds is that if it draws near
A little. It distances until it became rare sought

86. And it tempts the desert until when its craving intensified
Towards it, it bent away from its path and avoided

87. It counts the nights of its abandonment and nature
With everything yearned for to count and calculate

88. And it starts the irrigation unexpectedly
So it is but a glimpse, pouring swiftly

89. Thus is God’s subtle kindness in every ordeal
Even if time rallies despair and incites

90. Until it surpassed it like a rainbow, it adorns itself
To envy its likes from its companions or to propose

91. And a cloud passed over the summit of tents pulling
Over a pouring of sand, rain flooding

92. Sprinklings of torment its rain pearled
Tura, for it did not enrich, beautify, or marvel

93. It loved every generous soul its giving
It did not forget nomads nor forget gazelles

94. And the sands frowned until it almost
And the doves of the bushes frowned until they cooed

95. And the kindly doves circulated in the wilderness devout
To God in quenching the thirsty, drawing near

96. Storks which the seasons cycled, in them shaping
So it overflowed in those plains and gilded

97. And it returned the sands brown, green and framed them
A sky and enriched it and sprinkled and bedizened

98. And it returned the ewes’ udders swollen with milk
To suckle hungry lambs and be milked

99. And it stirred life in the wilderness and its elation
So nothing in the wilderness froze but leaped

100. And none languished in a state of sand babbling
And laughing in a mound of brocade, babbling

101. And it gathered the colors of light and sprinkled them
So red, pink, and blond, brownish

102. And green between the bushes and sea perplexed
And white with the celestial glow imbued

103. And a hue from brown it molded its temptation
Whiteness yes but an Arabized whiteness

104. Do you know the God’s land that the heavens traveled
To witness our world but forgot about the God’s land

105. I squeezed the stars in my palms and picked
Strewn over my bouquet and turban

106. My home and family, may God bless them both
And the violent winds returned kinder than the breeze

107. And I swear I did not ask for its love
A reward nor overvalued glory and position

108. Nor was my heart the home of hatred and harm
For I saw hatred disgraced and tired

109. A nightingale estranged from the vine’s bower
So it clamored in the world lonely and estranged

110. And it dipped its wing in divine fragrance
And it brought from the divine light procession

111. It endured a bloody wound in its heart
And it sang the remoteness most woeful and cheerful