‘Abid said…They sent for their riding camels which were in the desert belonging to Bakr in the valley of Mecca. They were fat and handsome when they were brought. Hassan Abu Kalhada recited these verses about that…(The poem defies translation…)
-The History, Poetry, and Geneology of the Yemen of Abid B. Sharya Al-Jurhumi, Elise Werner Crosby
It is not unusual that Arabic poems about camels should defy translation, whether written in the waafir meter (u-uu-/u-uu-/u- -) as was that of Abu Kalhada or in any other. I have no idea of the meter in which KhairAllah’s drover Idris composed and sang his love letter to his camel, O Rocket of the Sudan. Have you yet passed Addika? Have you tasted her smoky scent? Have you told her I am sick in love? Leave the water, you have slain the best...Even if I knew, would it even matter? Fat and handsome, Rocket only had ears for Idris.