Alas, noone has the time
to stop and consider subtle things.
They pass with thick brushes
drawing houses, children and graves unto the world.
The lost appear when they turn on a ballad
they look up and turn it off.
The night becomes the realm of ballads and subtle things.
"A little puss, a little fish and a few drops of tear in your breasts
you become a giant, sea, sea, sea
your mist creeps up from stream mouths in the evening
and chokes our hazelnut trees.
What can we do for shriveling flower buds?
We beg out children: just endure the hunger a bit.
We beg the mongers:
Do draw one less "Hotel", one less hidden marriage
Do draw one less bank, this entreaty
from us to you and from you to them far and away.
We send our wives to cut their nails and say
-- Yes sir, yes ma'am--
We send our children to beg
We go entrusting our beds to God
the motorized nomads of the summer.
Alas, noone has the time
to stop and consider subtle things.
The family homes, a return to the streams we first bathed in
A passion for soil, for its sake only
We block our ears: Money money and money
We unblock them and its: fighting, fighting, fighting.
Someone will ask maybe: A fight but what for?
Endless axes to our neighbor and punches to our wives
-- But we don't know what the fighting is for
And then in the prison of the town
We place the eraser right in front of our eyes
And we push the days wide
open up a place to think of our wives
to think of violets that pass without us.
Even though noone has the time
to stop and consider subtle things,
Even though the frail female schoolteachers
expand their holidays,
Even though they keep weaving blindfolds for us
with whatever we have that is holy
Accumulations and lines more, and yet more
And then spring flowers bloom.
One day someone passing far away
whistles, and in style we reply.
Gülten Akın
trans.Niran Elçi
