1. I reproached, had my neighbor heard my reproach,
And wrote, had my distant one read my writing!

2. And asked, had those whose love I sought
Illuminated my confusion with an answer!

3. And I squeezed the water of my eyes, if only sorrow
Would leave some youthful grass in the field of my life.

4. I complained, if only the kindred of passion
Would sympathize with hot tears and downpour of eyelids.

5. And my lips murmured, if only they were not paralyzed,
And the plectrum of my mouth was not crucified!

6. How can there be singing? My gardens are slaughtered,
Their flowers...and my vines are withered.

7. My trees without shade...and all its seasons
Are sultry...and the clouds thirsty of my clouds.

8. Passion knocked on my heart, and when I opened it
It blew into it sparks and embers.

9. Until when the dawn uncovered its sun
I found myself dead with the pulse of my clothes.

10. The two opposites battle within my ribs:
The resolve of certainty and the confusion of doubt.

11. My morning without sun...and my stars
Are the glimmer of gunpowder and the flash of swords.

12. My soul sucks the bitterness of exile, and my lips
Sip from a tear and the glow of a mirage.

13. I patch with the thread of memories a gown
Whose fullness was pierced by the daggers of absence.

14. A house with loved ones...how spacious it is!
If my house is devoid of loved ones?

15. They blamed my heart's contentment with its pulse,
That decline in passion is no blemish.

16. I, resident of sublime anguish, experienced it
As a child...and now I near my day of departure.

17. O mystic of fires, do not be gentle with me
If I come to you carrying my firewood.

18. I came to beg for your blaze, so you may burn
What days have left of my plants.

19. I am your child, the old man... I began my old age
Before the start of my childhood and youth.

20. Days played with me until they addicted me
To my anguish, and misfortune threaded my hills.

21. Loss leads my caravan as if I am
For sorrow a pillow, and for worries a blanket.

22. If you open the door of reproach, I have closed
In the face of blame the door of my excuse.

23. Do I love you? I do not know... I lost my naivete
And it lost me in its night of estrangement.

24. All I know is that I am a seed
Whose only water is your love and its soil.

25. My livelihood is chaste as childhood, so calm down,
I am your weaned child...do not doubt.

26. Old age? It is the foam of years which
The wave of life threw over a resolute young man.

27. "Fifty six" years have ended, and there is no
Joy with which I sew shut the openings of my torment!

28. Cheating and colocynth are on my tables,
And pus and potions are in my cups.

29. O beloved of sublime sorrow, my misfortune
Is that Iraq today is devoid of loved ones.

30. If it opened its door to the displaced
I would come to it crawling on my brows.

31. And I folded my tent of exile, if only it
Knew safety in Iraq, the land of meadows.

32. I paused my fountain on its orchards
And on the thickets of Dodan its flames.

33. I hugged it, so my soul performed ablution
With its sigh, and its dye's fragrance perfumed me.

34. My lips almost fled to the hyacinths of its waist,
Fleeing thirstily for a drink.

35. My hand got drunk when I passed my palm
Between waves of tresses and domes.

36. And mint fields whose roses blossomed,
And plains of basil and hills of sandalwood.

37. We indulged in the night's clothes, hiding our longing
From a spying eye and a doubting one.

38. So I drank the sweetest a thirsty wishes:
Honey with which I washed the grit of my palate.

39. O madman, she cried, leave my apples and
My garden you have wounded! How about my hyacinth?

40. Return my cloak and veil to me
Until the caller rose...and dusk

41. Rubbed the eyes, and a thread of flame appeared.
And the lamp yawned...and the moment began

42. Bare and wrapped in a dress of fog.
She prayed and I prayed the voluntary prayers like her

43. And laid out the dish of my soul for the Giver.
My fear for me - passion has dressed me in it -

44. And for you from you on the Day of Reckoning.
If you disavow my passion, bring me

45. My heart and pardon my feelings and rectitude.
Sleep, o outcast from both gardens, embracing

46. An empty space that shines between hills.
Delirium knew you bargaining dew

47. For embers and a cave of anguish for meadows.
Excuse me, friends in the land of the two rivers,

48. If my feet were estranged by distant lands.
The springs of harmony dried up and

49. The gardens of cardamom at the start of spring became barren.
Our loved ones...and their eyelids were lonely,

50. The road of return antagonized and angered me.
Our loved ones, meeting grew difficult and

51. My sun gave notice of its disappearance.
Our loved ones in the two rivers, our feasts

52. Faltered after you, o beloved ones.
We pray and we do not know that most of our prayers

53. Since we mastered hatred are unanswered.
The sectarian pandemic corroded our bones

54. And the plague thrived among the lords.
We lived in blindness, so when the dawn cleared

55. It uncovered a killer and a panting wolf.
And praising hypocrites, when they enter,

56. The stones of the shrine almost complain to God.
And effeminates who see the destruction of minarets

57. As glory...and victory as the chopping of necks.
And bootlickers who beseech the hand of the usurper

58. For the bliss of a position in a ruined abode.
A carcass, though the stench of its meat is tolerated

59. By the fangs of wolves and the canine of dogs.
The homeland of anguish and misery, enough

60. Patience with the intruders and tails!
I loved you? I do not know... I lost my naivety