This traditional lament shows the depth and strength of grief. It is said to be ‘very old’. Lorimer apparently originally recorded 24 lines, but only reported the first eight. He writes “It is said that after a man’s death his clothes are tied up in a bundle (buqca). Then, every day in the year that follows, the bundle is opened up and the things are all laid out, and the women chant this lament in front of them and weep. The men only weep.”
Here’s the poem:
Ah me! Woe is me! Did you see what I have done?
I never pictured to myself a day like this.
Ah me! Woe is me! I have fallen into God’s power.
(I am) like a tree at the side of the road: my Lion is in chains.
Alas for the dead fire, and the heart full of sighs!
I look all around here: you are not in the war-camp.
Alas for the dead fire, and the heart full of pain!
I look all around here: you are not among the fighting-men.
With kind permission, from: Lorimer, DLR 1963 “The Popular Verse of the Baḵẖtiāri of S. W. Persia –III: Further Specimens” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1, p. 66