Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Your Life
Poem by Abū al-ʻAtāhiyya (748–828), tr. Bernard Lewis in Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew Poems (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 59:
‹Older
Your life is a sum of counted breaths.
With each breath that passes
a part of life is lost.
That which gives life brings death every moment nearer,
and your caravan is led by one
who will not jest with you.
