Nazım Hikmet

1940

One afternoon
we sat
at the prison gate
and read Ghazali’s rubaiyat:
“Night
the great azure garden.
The gold-spangled whirling of the dancers.
And the dead stretched out in their wooden boxes.”

If one day,
far from me,
life weighs on you
like a dark rain,
read Ghazali again.
And I know,
my Pirayende,
you’ll feel only pity
for his desperate loneliness
and awful dread
of death.

Let flowing water bring Ghazali to you:
“The king is but an earthen bowl
on the Potter’s shelf,
and victories are told
on the ruined walls of the king of kings.”

Welling up and springing forth.
Cold
hot
cool
And in the great azure garden,
the eternal
ceaseless turning
of the dancers.

I don’t know why
I keep thinking
of a  Çankırı saying
I first heard from you:
“When the poplars are blooming in Ghazali,
but
the master doesn’t see
he cherries coming.
That’s why he worships death.
Upstairs, “Sugar” Ali plays his lute.
Evening.
Outside, children are shouting.
Water is flowing from the fountain.
And in the light of the guardhouse,
tied to the acacias, three baby wolves.
Beyond the bars
my great azure garden opens up.
What is real is life …

Don’t forget me, Hatçe.