THE CIRCLE
Text and book art: Can Göknil
Ancient Greek poetry: Talat S. Halman
Eski Anadolu ve Ortadoğudan şiirler (İstanbul: Akbank, 1996)

Swimming face up I watch them.
Stony mountains wending their way down playfully to the sea.
Approaching the shore they drape themselves with pines.
These mountains once listened to ancient Aegean poets.

Mind you stay young.
Mind you stay young, my beloved soul.
Soon there will be others who are young
And I shall die and become earth.

What is it I’m going to do?
I’m going to take off and head for beyond that distant peak.
Go down to the seaside and sit on the beach.
Offer my prayer to the Sea Nymph.
All by myself. Quietly. Meekly.

The Sea Nymph will pay me no heed.
But still, until I’ve grown so  old
That my worn out soul has departed
I’ll never give up this sweet hope of mine.

Later clouds perched upon the shore
And wandered from inlet to inlet.
Like us, they too are passionate lovers of the sea, passionate adorers of water.
Rising slightly, they filtered through the pines
Swathing the hills like lace, layer by layer.
Fully laden, the water of their bodies showered onto the earth.

The hearts in the pigeons grew cold
And their wings dropped to their sides
Sang Sappho of Lesbos, who immediately added:
In all the dominions of the gods
Only Death
Allows no place for sweet hope.

I too knew Death.
For a long time we played tag with each other.
Death didn’t knock on the door straight away but waited in ambush instead.

That day when it stopped by my mother’s
She was ninety-two years old.
The wretch came in while I was out shopping
Engulfed my mother’s shriveled body
And snatched her soul away.

Such things have come to pass in this world
That it wouldn’t astonish me even if shaggy camels  turned to flour and passed through sieves
My mother used to say.

Swimming face up
I listen to nature.
The shrieks of eagles in the stony mountains must be as old as the sky.
I hear some nestlings screech as their mother approaches bringing prey to the nest.
Her young are growing up.
That’s all it is.