Classic Poem

Skirts of waterlilies sway across their thighs, made of full-blown
blossoms that grew in large, deep springs where the water is sweet.
With their cool and beautiful eyes, their light laughter, the girls
climb up on a heap covered with dwarf date palm, where sponge gourd
has rooted and calabash has spread, near a hut that has cotton
growing in the front yard, and there is a fence of thorns and near it
are twisting paths choked up with grass, and standing there on the mound,
they count the wagons that carry the salt for the salt merchants.
I feel pain and how I wish that my life were over! There was a time
when they would climb the highest peak on the wide mountain
where prosperity was unending and the peacocks would rise up
and dance in gardens of cultivated flowers while on the great slopes
planted with crops, there were monkeys that were swinging and leaping,
and trees gave fruit in and out of season, so many that the monkeys
could not take them all; and as the kings with their great armies
came against the hill in war, ignorant of how difficult it would be
to prevail against their father Pari, he who wielded a sharp spear,
he who was the master of abundant toddy,
from the peak the girls would count the proud horses bearing the iron weapons of kings!