1. By my life! If a corpse
In its grave returned a greeting, I would have accepted it as speech.

2. So it consoled my sorrow that every part
Of my father will either decay or be bound by it.

3. The nights and days between me and Muhammad
Have failed in their connection and gathering.

4. As the people's bucket failed while being drawn
From the water, splintering from the rope's strain.

5. The days after my companion left me
Seem to jab my eyes whenever they darken.

6. As if a bucket pulled up in its climbing
Hits and wounds the veins of my tear ducts.

7. On my hot cheek the hand of a Thaqif woman threw
The organization of my eye's vision into disarray.

8. By my life! For Muhammad I distorted
My heart, keeping it from him for so long.

9. A Syrian woman, dusty, no other ghoul but her,
Drawing herself away from the world’s vanities.

10. By God, how I entrusted the bottom of a valley,
And below it, its depths and precipices!

11. In Ghouriya of Damascus, which Tanihk
And Lakhm inhabit, its people stricken with leprosy.

12. Muhammad has moved away from his sons
Slow for one who hopes for reunion’s conclusion.

13. No separation but where our mounts
Are stabled at his tomb, rising over us.

14. It calls to him, hoping he will answer, and yet
There has come from the earth a barrier to its greeting.

15. Among what was in my friend Muhammad
Were traits from which no neighbor had to fear harm.