I'VE LEARNED SOME THINGS

I've learned some things from having lived:
If you're alive, experience one thing with all your power
Your beloved should be worn out from being kissed
And you should drop exhausted from the smelling of a flower

A person can gaze at the sky for hours
Can gaze for hours at a bird, a child, the sea
To live on the earth is to become part of it
To strike down roots that won't pull free

If you cling to anything, tightly hold a friend
Fight for something with every muscle, whole body, all your passion
And if you lay yourself for a time on the warm beach
Let yourself rest like a grain of sand, a leaf, a stone

To your utmost, listen to every beautiful song
As though filling all the self with sound and melody
One should plunge head-first into life
As one dives from a cliff into the emerald sea

Distant lands should draw you, people you don't know
To read every book, know other's lives, you should be burning
You shouldn't exchange for anything the pleasure of a glass of water
No matter how much the joy, your life should be filled with yearning

You should know sorrow, honorably, with all your being
Because the pains, like joys, make a person grow
Your blood should mingle in the great circulation of life
And in your veins life's endless fresh blood should flow

I've learned some things from having lived:
If you're alive, experience largely, merge with rivers, heavens, cosmos
For what we call living is a gift given to life
And life is a gift bestowed upon us


Ataol Behramoglu
"Yasadiklarimdan Ogrendigim Bir Sey Var"

Translation by Walter Andrews

Being Old

It's because you are so young--
You do not understand.
But we are old
As the jungle trees
That bloomed forever,
Old as the forgotten rivers
That flowed into the earth.

Surely we know what you do not know;
Joy of living,
Uselessness of things.

You are too young to understand yet.
Build another skyscraper
Touching the stars.

We sit with our backs against a tree
And watch skyscrapers tumble
And stars forget.

Solomon built a temple
And it must have fallen down.
It isn't here now.

We know some things, being old,
You do not understand.

Langston Hughes

Gypsy Songs

The faery beam upon you,
The stars to glister on you;
   A moon of light
   In the noon of night,
Till the fire-drake hath o'ergone you!
The wheel of fortune guide you,
The boy with the bow beside you;
   Run ay in the way
   Till the bird of day,
And the luckier lot betide you!

To the old, long life and treasure!
To the young all health and pleasure!
   To the fair, their face
   With eternal grace
And the soul to be loved at leisure!
To the witty, all clear mirrors;
To the foolish, their dark errors;
   To the loving sprite,
   A secure delight;
To the jealous, his own false terrors!

   -- Ben Jonson