Classic Poem

Children with their large heads, close friends whose glances
when angry are like those of male wildcats, whose soft mouths
smell of the flesh of birds that they have eaten, whose fathers
are foul-mouthed hunters, these children make arrows
by setting the hollow white thorns of the umbrella thorn tree
into slender sticks of broomstick grass and bend their bows
of small branches and hunt for wild rats in the cotton plant hedges.
In that village with handsome families, where there is wasteland,
where the dung of white sheep that have eaten kumil fruit
is spread out like nuts, under a pavilion with strong pillars
by the light of a little fire kindled by a cowherd, the modest
man of great worth who sits down with bards is a friend
who knows his friend's heart and will give
his life if harm threatens that king whose armies win victories.