1. Does the water of your eye neglect to flow from the mention of Salma
As necklaces cascade down a rugged mountainside?

2. What hope remains for peace after times
When white hairs sprouted and the staff grew unsteady?

3. The vicissitudes of war stand between me and her.
A war where death changes course and pours forth.

4. When her villages spend the night with me they are places
Where the thighs of the fair sway like camel litters.

5. Moving like the measured gait of a camel over sand
My poetry’s rhythm bounds free yet remains orderly.

6. Ready for the days of war as though
When the chicks of the wild hen first took flight.

7. Answering the naked swords with other naked swords
That strike tents’ doors and make them ring.

8. Against every living thing I have launched a raid
But none suffered as Hudhayl and Dhu Za'bal did:

9. The morning we were on the hill as though we were
Tousled locks the dawn breeze had just stirred.

10. With a flaming torch calling Hawazin from on high
Above it a banner of twisted strands.

11. In a battle where we left their chieftains
Calling out, bound and fettered.

12. Loudly we lop off their heads with swords
And our spears in them flare up and flow.

13. You see every dark-tressed knight in armor
Plundered by an eagle and nimble resourceful ones.