1. Come by their abodes and go slowly, and ask
Divided between youth and hoariness.

2. It is as though we never sang among their walls
In delight, and as though we never halted.

3. Your eyelids have been shut by weeping, so part them
To flow on the remnants of an evil change.

4. And many a desolate place the guide gets lost in,
Scorched by the sun, torn and unknown.

5. I left it with a robe that treads the darkness
Startled in movement, night of scanty garb.

6. It gazes with a look as though its tear ducts
Were mouths of towering heights never halted.

7. And it is as though when she alights her place of descent
Are traces of a prostrating worshipper, humble.

8. And it is as though the traces of the huntresses in her plain
Are the track of lions in confused folly.

9. And her guide holds her with a complete rope,
Like a palm tree whose bark never gets stripped.

10. And it is as though she were a wild enemy who travelled at dawn
The blues of the water, while her thoughts were of home.

11. She filled her buckets, taking pride in carrying them,
Before her anklets like the little whelp.

12. She sways like the swinging of the leather bucket that carries her
In timing like the embroidered hem of a garment.

13. I loaded her with heavy worries, so they cut off
Their ties with us, bent and twisted.

14. From the resolve of a heart I did not turn to other than it,
Anger of a striker hitting the joints.

15. Until when an appointed night came over them
They fell into the hands of armed raiders.

16. Until an experienced guide aroused them
Soaring to his goal with the eyes of a young mountain goat,

17. Called by his nickname when their thirst was at its most
And called by his name at the drinking station.

18. Pallor from the burdens appeared on his face
So that he seemed polished granite that was not smoothed.

19. Traveling with his glance when guidance was confused
Between planets and an isolated star.

20. And many a twisted lock have I left disheveled
As prey for the ravenous beasts that morning fed.

21. My pact with him while death keeps guard over his soul
And with his head like the beak of a wretched raven.

22. And I have tasted the rain dripping its moisture
While dawn was still confused like the one-eyed blinker.

23. With a sprinkling that casts shadows with a ladle
Like tattooing expressing the mind of the troubled.

24. An air that cleaves between two sides of her face
A light whose sharpness seems a hanging spearhead.

25. And it is as though below the excuse there lies a sheet
That chisels have been taken to, planed and smoothed.