Nazım Hikmet

1940

The heat is like nothing you’ve ever known, 
and I who grew up by the sea-
the sea is so far away …

Between two and five
I lie under the mosquito net,
soaking wet,
motionless,
eyes open,
and listen to the flies buzz.
I know
in the yard now
they’re splashing water on the walls,
steam rising from the hot red stones.
And outside, skirting the burnt grass
of the fortress, the black-
tiled city sits
in nitric acid light …

Nights a wind comes up suddenly
and suddenly dies.
And the heat, panting like a beast
in the dark, moves on soft furry feet,
threatening us with something.
And from time to time
we shiver in our skins,
afraid of nature …

There may be an earthquake.
It’s just three days away.
It rocked Çapanoğlu Yozgat.
and the people here say:
because it sits on a salt mine,
Çankırı will collapse
forty days before doomsday.

To go to bed one night
and not wake up in the morning,
your head smashed by a wooden beam.
What a blind, good-for-nothing death.
I want to live a little longer,
a good deal longer.
I want this for many things,
for many very important things.