Poetry
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Enis Batur
ELEGIES: THE SARCOPHAGUS OF MOURNING WOMEN
Aglayan Kadinlar Lahdi (1993). Istanbul: Harf Yayinlari.
Viator, viator!
-- Carmina Epigraphica
I
If one day you should die,
that very instant on my sky
would be etched a meteor of flame,
here, in the caravan creaking from town to town,
is the tent I folded and put away,
the anticipation I kept
in a riddle pitched from day to night
at each precise oasis secretly left behind,
the water's song will not vainly trail
this drop from the spring
--unheard lyre.
II
If ever I should feel, the memory
of touch crusted over--how long!--
will stir and tremble on my skin,
a long shudder shake the clock-spring
that held its breath in a dark nook
and the panes of all the windows in me break,
now one's been opened;
the hourglass I reversed and set aside
will swagger up, each grain of sand prepared
to melt in my fountain: there was a time, once,
you left this land in sorrow."
Read the rest
Enis Batur
ELEGIES: THE SARCOPHAGUS OF MOURNING WOMEN
Aglayan Kadinlar Lahdi (1993). Istanbul: Harf Yayinlari.
Viator, viator!
-- Carmina Epigraphica
I
If one day you should die,
that very instant on my sky
would be etched a meteor of flame,
here, in the caravan creaking from town to town,
is the tent I folded and put away,
the anticipation I kept
in a riddle pitched from day to night
at each precise oasis secretly left behind,
the water's song will not vainly trail
this drop from the spring
--unheard lyre.
II
If ever I should feel, the memory
of touch crusted over--how long!--
will stir and tremble on my skin,
a long shudder shake the clock-spring
that held its breath in a dark nook
and the panes of all the windows in me break,
now one's been opened;
the hourglass I reversed and set aside
will swagger up, each grain of sand prepared
to melt in my fountain: there was a time, once,
you left this land in sorrow."
Read the rest
