it's 1962 March 28th I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train night is falling I never knew I liked night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain I don't like comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn't know I loved the earth can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it I've never worked the earth it must be my only Platonic love

and here I've loved rivers all this time whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills European hills crowned with chateaus or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see I know you can't wash in the same river even once I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow I know this has troubled people before and will trouble those after me I know all this has been said a thousand times before and will be said after me

I didn't know I loved the sky cloudy or clear the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish I hear voices not from the blue vault but from the yard the guards are beating someone again I didn't know I loved trees bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino they come upon me in winter noble and modest beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish "the poplars of Izmir losing their leaves. . . they call me The Knife. . . lover like a young tree. . . I blow stately mansions sky-high" in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief to a pine bough for luck

I never knew I loved roads even the asphalt kind Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea Koktebele formerly "Goktep¨¦ ili" in Turkish the two of us inside a closed box the world flows past on both sides distant and mute I was never so close to anyone in my life bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Gered¨¦ when I was eighteen apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon they could take and at eighteen our lives are what we value least I've written this somewhere before wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the shadow play Ramazan night a paper lantern leading the way maybe nothing like this ever happened maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy going to the shadow play Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather's hand his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat with a sable collar over his robe and there's a lantern in the servant's hand and I can't contain myself for joy flowers come to mind for some reason poppies cactuses jonquils in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika fresh almonds on her breath I was seventeen my heart on a swing touched the sky I didn't know I loved flowers friends sent me three red carnations in prison

I just remembered the stars I love them too whether I'm floored watching them from below or whether I'm flying at their side

I have some questions for the cosmonauts were the stars much bigger did they look like huge jewels on black velvet or apricots on orange did you feel proud to get closer to the stars I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to say they were terribly figurative and concrete my heart was in my mouth looking at them they are our endless desire to grasp things seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad I never knew I loved the cosmos

snow flashes in front of my eyes both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind I didn't know I liked snow

I never knew I loved the sun even when setting cherry-red as now in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors but you aren't about to paint it that way I didn't know I loved the sea except the Sea of Azov or how much

I didn't know I loved clouds whether I'm under or up above them whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois strikes me I like it

I didn't know I liked rain whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train is it because I lit my sixth cigarette one alone could kill me is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night I never knew I liked the night pitch-black sparks fly from the engine I didn't know I loved sparks I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return

                                                 19 April 1962
                                                 Moscow

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

Oh my! he spoke of things that I could never speak of. Maybe I have to turn sixty to think such thoughts or write such verses.

Nazim is considered to a foremost Turkish poet. His life is similar to Neruda's. He was a Communist and spent quite a bit of time in prison for his belief system. One can also find similarity of styles or themes with another poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a Pakistani poet who too was jailed for his socialist beliefs.Fiaz's poetry in Urdu is a joy to read!

• S

Though you know it anyhow Listen to me, darling, now,

Proving what I need not prove How I know I love you, love.

Near and far, near and far, I am happy where you are;

Likewise I have never larnt How to be it where you aren't.

Far and wide, far and wide, I can walk with you beside;

Furthermore, I tell you what, I sit and sulk where you are not.

Visitors remark my frown Where you're upstairs and I am down,

Yes, and I'm afraid I pout When I'm indoors and you are out;

But how contentedly I view Any room containing you.

In fact I care not where you be, Just as long as it's with me.

In all your absences I glimpse Fire and flood and trolls and imps.

Is your train a minute slothful? I goad the stationmaster wrothful.

When with friends to bridge you drive I never know if you're alive,

And when you linger late in shops I long to telephone the cops.

Yet how worth the waiting for, To see you coming through the door.

Somehow, I can be complacent Never but with you adjacent.

Near and far, near and far, I am happy where you are;

Likewise I have never larnt How to be it where you aren't.

Then grudge me not my fond endeavor, To hold you in my sight forever;

Let none, not even you, disparage Such a valid reason for a marriage

Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west, Latin writing, from west to east. Languages are like cats: You must not stroke their hair the wrong way. The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert, The trees bend in the wind, And stones fly from all four winds, Into all four winds. They throw stones, Throw this land, one at the other, But the land always falls back to the land. They throw the land, want to get rid of it. Its stones, its soil, but you can't get rid of it. They throw stones, throw stones at me In 1936, 1938, 1948, 1988, Semites throw at Semites and anti-Semites at anti-Semites, Evil men throw and just men throw, Sinners throw and tempters throw, Geologists throw and theologists throw, Archaelogists throw and archhooligans throw, Kidneys throw stones and gall bladders throw, Head stones and forehead stones and the heart of a stone, Stones shaped like a screaming mouth And stones fitting your eyes Like a pair of glasses, The past throws stones at the future, And all of them fall on the present. Weeping stones and laughing gravel stones, Even God in the Bible threw stones, Even the Urim and Tumim were thrown And got stuck in the beastplate of justice, And Herod threw stones and what came out was a Temple.

Oh, the poem of stone sadness Oh, the poem thrown on the stones Oh, the poem of thrown stones. Is there in this land A stone that was never thrown And never built and never overturned And never uncovered and never discovered And never screamed from a wall and never discarded by the builders And never closed on top of a grave and never lay under lovers And never turned into a cornerstone?

Please do not throw any more stones, You are moving the land, The holy, whole, open land, You are moving it to the sea And the sea doesn't want it The sea says, not in me.

Please throw little stones, Throw snail fossils, throw gravel, Justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tsedek, Throw soft stones, throw sweet clods, Throw limestone, throw clay, Throw sand of the seashore, Throw dust of the desert, throw rust, Throw soil, throw wind, Throw air, throw nothing Until your hands are weary And the war is weary And even peace will be weary and will be.

Translated from the Hebrew by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav