Sol 5.6

  1. Today, the Iskandar al-Yaziji I know is

    nothing but the dregs of a cup I do not sip.

  2. Who has hidden the consummate poet from my hopes,

    and what enchantress’s mouth has claimed him for itself?

  3. Scarcely had I come to know the graces he embodied

    when those graces vanished, while their admirers sought to keep him.

  4. Perhaps I am the worthiest of those who gather round him,

    through love for him and verses of his that I recite.

  5. No letters he adorns bring me to life,

    nor gatherings enthrall me and move me to sing of them.

  6. It is as though a dream of Paradise had left me;

    so I spent the night apart from it, dispirited and bewildered.

  7. Will the visions we once wooed ever return—

    visions you used to breathe fragrance upon and nourish?

  8. And can your cup appear to us as a radiance

    from the sun, enriching us as we yearn for it?

Sol 5.6