After twenty years of death
How has become the color of your spring smile?
How has become the appearance of the child
In your childish soul?
To my Double-Tongued friends
Dear friends,
Thank you because, by your bitter hatred,
You led me to the river of sweet love
Till I reached its important bottom
Where I brought out the pearls of its speech
Pearl by pearl.
To my Griefs:
Thank you because you have not fired
The coup de grace at me up to now.
To Rain
Thank you because you fall down in Tigris's lap
As the beggars' screams fall upon the old bridge
As the seagulls fall upon the rusty boats
As mercy falls on the Earth.
When they search for an embracing heart
And do not find
They will go back to where they come from.
To winter:

Thank you small prophet.
Thank you for your clouds reaching at last
By registered mail.
Thank you for your clouds coming
With childhood stamps pasted on.
Once I removed the stamps I began to drown
And my heart began to burn
In the moans of letters,
In the screams of words
And the flood of dots.
To the World Stamps:
Thank you ….
If the whole of you have gathered
Together with your birds, crowns and suns
You will not bring back to me
One single dream of my childhood dreams
Which the postman had stolen.
To Time:
Thank you my big brother.
Thank you handsome hangman.
Thank you because you have not arrested me
On a charge of begging the meaning
From the double - tongued countries
And the masses of dissidents.
To Beauty:

Thank you because you have discovered
The blueness in my soul
Whereas I have discovered the lines in your hands.
You have discovered the spring in my words
Whereas I have discovered the meaning in your lips.
You have discovered the music in my letters
Whereas I have discovered my soul sliding
Into your soul to the extent of delirium.
To the Dot:
Thank you for your great patience with me
Until the loss of my final letters gets in a false pub
Or in a street selling the not-for-sale
Or in a very old city
Or a history upon which the dogs made water
And the spears of barbarians ate its good fish.

Sahib Ash-Shahir*: an Iraqi poet who died in the Iraq- Iran war when he was only 27 years old