it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird
I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love
and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus
or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see
I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before
and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before
and will be said after me
I didn't know I loved the sky
cloudy or clear
the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino
in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish
I hear voices
not from the blue vault but from the yard
the guards are beating someone again
I didn't know I loved trees
bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino
they come upon me in winter noble and modest
beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish
"the poplars of Izmir
losing their leaves. . .
they call me The Knife. . .
lover like a young tree. . .
I blow stately mansions sky-high"
in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief
to a pine bough for luck
I never knew I loved roads even the asphalt kind
Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea Ko
ktebele
formerly "Goktepé ili" in Turkish
the two of us inside a closed box
the world flows past on both sides distant and mute
I was never so close to anyone in my life
bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Geredé
when I was eighteen
apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon they could take
and at eighteen our lives are what we value least
I've written this somewhere before
wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the shadow play Ramazan nighta paper lantern leading the waymaybe nothing like this ever happenedmaybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boygoing to the shadow playRamazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather's hand his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coatwith a sable collar over his robeand there's a lantern in the servant's handand I can't contain myself for joyflowers come to mind for some reason poppies cactuses jonquilsin the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika fresh almonds on her breathI was seventeenmy heart on a swing touched the sky I didn't know I loved flowersfriends sent me three red carnations in prison
I just remembered the stars I love them toowhether I'm floored watching them from below or whether I'm flying at their side
I have some questions for the cosmonauts were the stars much biggerdid they look like huge jewels on black velvetor apricots on orangedid you feel proud to get closer to the starsI saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to say they were terribly figurative and concretemy heart was in my mouth looking at them they are our endless desire to grasp thingsseeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad I never knew I loved the cosmos
snow flashes in front of my eyesboth heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind I didn't know I liked snow
I never knew I loved the suneven when setting cherry-red as nowin Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors but you aren't about to paint it that wayI didn't know I loved the seaexcept the Sea of Azovor how much
I didn't know I loved cloudswhether I'm under or up above themwhether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts
moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois strikes meI like it
I didn't know I liked rainwhether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin trainis it because I lit my sixth cigarette one alone could kill meis it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscowher hair straw-blond eyelashes blue
the train plunges on through the pitch-black nightI never knew I liked the night pitch-blacksparks fly from the engineI didn't know I loved sparksI didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return
19 April 1962Moscow
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
Nazim Hikmet
