In honor of Republic Day, we present this work by one of modern Turkey’s most prominent poets.

 

Pass through me, I’ll remain, I’ll wait, pass through me,
but where you pass through me I cannot know.

I was told, there’s a ripe fruit behind the curtain of patience,
the world will teach you both patience, and the ripe fruit’s taste.

They said, you waited like these trees, a vision like these trees,
sorrowful like these trees.

I was opened, I was closed, opened, closed, I saw
those who went as much as those who came,
where is the end of patience, where the grief-stricken ass,
where the audacious fruit,
where is the garden?

If only someone would come… if only someone would see… someone had come… opened… stayed
she stays with me still.

For how long this emptiness rings within me, who
slayed the garden’s merry widow, the mulberry opposite me?
I glanced with it the most, wanted so much
just once for it to speak.

Were it all up to me I’d have kept quiet longer, yet I creaked wearily,
lest the rusted lock of my tongue be undone,
a stray line somewhere be hummed, the worms inside me crawl.

I saw it all, I saw it all, the end of patience!
if someone would come, would see, would see, now,
the wind is swaying me.

 

Translation by George Messo