Sol 6.1

  1. And what of a soul that, whenever I say it has drawn near

    to healing from Hawsa, has its mending broken anew?

  2. It is wounded anew by a dwelling known long ago,

    or else by the dead, whose apparition comes visiting.

  3. And I would not—while my family had beasts of burden,

    and while its camels bore them on a day of departure,

  4. and while Nawar kept silent with me and did not say,

    her dependents dust-covered, 'Why, son of Layla,

  5. do you remain in a land whose skin has changed,

    and where the fires of torment have burned so long?'—

  6. approach the land of al-Sham, while the people have not had

    their best stand up for them, as long as moisture wets an eye.

  7. Do you not see, around your house, one seeking refuge

    at your cooking pot, her resourcefulness having failed her?

  8. How, then, can you desire ease after what you see—

    women in Najd impoverished, and their men likewise?

  9. And a black woman in worn-out rags approached

    us, walking with them and asking about us.

  10. Two of them were on her shoulders, and she

    was indeed trembling, her emaciation almost a tale to tell.

  11. And behind her were two girls, both of them hers,

    clinging to the rags; misery was her condition.

  12. And in her lap was a nose-pierced girl; behind her,

    a little tousle-haired girl, not yet fully weaned at a year.

  13. Then she collapsed and cast them toward us, as though she were

    an ostrich in drought whose chicks had moved away from her.

  14. Into an enclosure—how many tents and domed pavilions came

    to it, and perishing people; its dependents were many.

Sol 6.1