1. O Abul Fadl, the night has become long or my patience has betrayed me
So let me imagine that the stars do not move

2. I see the white sand after you has darkened
So my time is a night with no dawn

3. And that is only because it holds a treasure
Whose Lord did not want it to return to the resurrection

4. I was pleased with eyes as full as a star
Born between the sun, moon and full moon

5. With shining white color that if it hid it would sleep
Upon it as the breeze slept upon the flowers

6. With my soul he was a crescent I hoped would become full
But fate met him at the beginning of the month

7. And Shibl we hoped would become a grown lion
But he died without having claws or nails

8. The decree of Allah came upon him in a foreign land
I am a stranger in origin, grave and fate

9. I bear the heaviness of dust though I
Feel this weight more than the dust itself

10. And leave him in unfaithful dirt
Though fate leads evil to more evil

11. By Allah if I could withstand his loss
We would both die or my life would be shared with him

12. But our souls belong to another
So I have no power over mine or his

13. And the days did not require except their news
If only they did not require until you filled my chest

14. And before his love and habit flowed
In my heart as water flows in tender branches

15. No sorrow but the day I saw him
And left with part of myself and part in the grave

16. And I know the events have an observatory
To take all of me as they took half

17. When the clothes of childhood slipped away
As feathers fall off the defective wings

18. And the breastfeeding was replaced
By the keys of rhetoric and poetry

19. And he faced the ornaments of youth and they opened
Revealing his merits before their blossoming

20. And their proofs for the highborn stood upon him
As evidence stands on traces from the past

21. And his pure water face told us of his goodness
Like the telling of clear water about a pure mouth

22. And time was generous with him though it is stingy
And water may flow from solid rock

23. Fate clothed him in the garment of tombs so his glories
Became naught but a mention within them

24. So he was generous to enemies with his remaining wealth
And he was not one to give generously to enemies

25. So if I cry, close kinship requires
Tears, and if I'm patient there is reward

26. In him is what weakens my strength except I
Was built as the generous are on patience

27. The patience of a grieving one whose heart
Flutters between ribs and throat

28. Turning an eye that does not sleep as if
It has no eyelid to close or lashes to shade

29. His tears covered its companions so it is as if
A drowned corpse floats atop the sea

30. Every day and night it spoils my sleep and wakefulness
A specter moves about and memories flow

31. And it expands my chest with sighs remembering
That the expanse is still narrower for my chest

32. And they said solace will soothe him with another
I said to them, can ember extinguish ember?

33. Will a desirous wound heal but with its like
No, it flares and spreads instead

34. I wish solace with calamity occurs
As enough, not soothing or igniting

35. So do not ask me of patience, for I
Buried my heart with it, and my patience within it

36. For if not my heart, you were its half
As the crescent is formed from the full moon

37. O gift that came and went and I did not
Stand to thank Allah for what was in it of gratitude

38. My sorrow doubled that you left and did not take
The place of companionship in the mouth of the beloved

39. And were not a line matching your likeness
As the book links line to line

40. You did not lead an army blood stained
Seeing their white like seeds on wine

41. You did not compete tongues of war around you
To judge the confused with custom and evidence

42. With a strike making white fly from its heat
Like sparks from ember

43. Seeing its armor scattered
Falling like flakes from the nail

44. Nor in fighting for Allah’s cause made your stab
Reach a strike like a well atop a river bank

45. You did not stand for Allah’s justice
I will judge and not judge the like of it again

46. You did not walk in the shadow of banners as the young lion walks
To hunt under the fluttering of the falcon

47. You did not flutter fires around you to the villages
As the edges of red banners flutter

48. You did not stop the best meanings and their support
To choose from help to the chaste

49. You did not compete with the star in light, elevation, reputation
Omens and signals when it runs its course

50. You did not embarrass the exquisite garden with a garden
Whose corners are decorated with prose and verse

51. You did not stand scene after scene
To validate imaginations with reality

52. I have not said this but what your intelligence guarantees
Like the guarantee of clouds for rain

53. Peace be upon you from Allah your Lord if you have passed
Over, while we remain on the bridge

54. We are but like horses on a racetrack
We advanced some then stayed on the track

55. And when we competed, your ultimate goal
Was death, so the short path won

56. Fate erased you from my sight but memories of you
Remain in my heart, and your mention in my thoughts

57. So nothing is forgotten though its importance fades
For you will live on in memory

58. And time whose turning missed me
And hit you when I was unprepared

59. You left and left behind those you departed from
In sorrow, anxiety and thought

60. Were the earth to reveal you I would say
Those inside are like those outside

61. With no difference between us but we
Feel harm while you do not feel

62. I hoped for you in life and the faith before it
Yet you left disappointed in both hopes

63. Out of etiquette and loyalty I visit you though ruin
Distracts from my loyalty and care

64. And when old age came, I made it
Your youth, blessing its era over that of old age

65. And said my son's youth is my own
As meaning transfers from me to him

66. But it passed as youth itself passes
Good ties and publishing passed

67. He was like lingering pure amber
That appears but leaves fragrance in the hand

68. If after him I experience pleasures
Then pleasure is akin to betrayal

69. I cannot fulfill when I have lived after him
And confession at times is greater than excuse

70. Sorrow is enough that I called but he did not answer
Not out of dignity or composure

71. His silence was not due to distance
Between us, only the space of two arms in fate

72. In worldly things we compete foolishly though
Its utmost is to end in poverty

73. In life we are like riders of a ship
Thinking we are still while time flows

74. I have folded the nights, and the nights are stages
To an appointed time moving as I do

75. And I have wasted days that in their bitterness
Waste me, and the endpoint of waste is fate

76. To Allah I complain of my sorrow, and truly
I lost you like water is lost in the barren land

77. As forty days finished with me in mourning
The stars of grey shone in the darkness of hair

78. So enough, O critics, for due to much blame
My tears have given me a justification to weep

79. When my son turns away and my youth leaves
Farewell to time upon farewell

80. I endured nights and nights are stages
To an appointed time moving unto me