So the poet tried to return to his Iraq, but was waylaid and killed by brigands along the way. He was the man who in his prime said: The stallions, and the night, and the desert know me, And the sword, and the spear, and the paper, and the pen. But had to say before his death: I am nothing but an arrow, shot in the air, Coming down again, unheld by its target. And he was killed just north of Baghdad, where all poets go to die.”
