Sol 5.6

  1. Are these the traces of Qutayla’s people at al-Dakhul,

    and at Hawmal an ancient encampment looming into view?

  2. The winds played over its outlines and made them new again:

    dark stones lingering in the ashes, crouched there,

  3. dusky-cheeked, as though—after long years had passed—

    they were women visiting a sick man in their midst.

  4. The heartlands of a resounding waste, amid its blood-red veins,

    are bare, level tracks, with clefts between them.

  5. I truly meant to school myself to patience away from you, but I was held back

    by an old attachment to your love within my heart.

  6. The reproaching women lied; no, they meant to betray me,

    and startling white hairs showed amid the deep black of my locks.

  7. And I have joined the cavalry, my full battle gear borne

    by a coal-black horse, lip-smacking and fierce upon the rein,

  8. powerful under the rein, as though he were entrenched among rocks—

    an embattled man, wronged, watching his own clan.

  9. His vital spark endures; once mastered, he gives more than is asked,

    and when you gather him beneath you, his thunder is deep and hoarse.

  10. His gallop is the swimming of a man turning back toward shore, whom

    a surging, far-resounding wave has hurled into the deep.

Sol 5.6