Classic Poem

A man, obsessed by people
and the weddings of the poor,
is called forth by night leaves and palm fronds
and he rises from the Cave of Hira".

Master of this desert,
take us to your Father who inhabits the mouth of rivers.
Grant us what the season's wind grants
when it wraps itself around the trees.

A pregnant land, we had watered it
till it shook and grew like a woman in labor.
Rains brought out the pasturing grass,
but we turned it into black scum
scattered by winds.

And the man rising from the Cave of Hira"
walks among people,
alone —
a single star glitters on the eastern horizon,
the pregnant earth turns its Arab circle,