Sol 6.1

  1. Whose are the dwellings, effaced at the valley bend,

    at al-Dawm, between Buhar and al-Shirʿ?

  2. They have weathered, having stood through years—

    seven since their folk departed, which effaced them—

  3. save the remnants of a weathered tent,

    whose foundations circled the campsite.

  4. So I stood in the whole tribe's camp, while

    the channels in my head streamed with tears,

  5. like a flooding stream's cross-channel over Falaj,

    its channels flowing over the crops.

  6. So I stood there to question it,

    on a supple-chested mount, like a nabʿ rod.

  7. I wear out the riding camels despite their reluctance,

    with a brisk gait between walking and running,

  8. with the scurrying of an earless hen ostrich,

    bald-headed among bald-headed cock ostriches,

  9. and a bow's spring, from a whittled stave chosen

    by a craftsman for long life and striking force,

  10. and a deaf man's hands, hurrying to the first watering,

    its pulley shaking from the hauling,

  11. from a well's pooled water; his turn came

    to draw from it at dawn after the night before the fourth-day watering.

  12. So he kept the well-rope bobbing, and if

    his hands missed their grip, he hauled with his upper arm.

  13. Tell Banu Sahm there with you: is there

    among you any unprecedented stroke of fate?

  14. Or do you see anyone today

    who has secured the sound counsel of a brother who cares for him?

  15. Yet if you prevailed in the dispute for your

    ally, it proved like a lump of fat from a rock,

  16. and you set its precedent for the people,

    and sat facing the wind in a rainwater basin,

  17. you shall surely be admonished at the gatherings

    not to mingle giving with withholding.

Sol 6.1