…where the spirit moved me today…

The “Tarzan” of Sinop in Sinop, Turkey

Perhaps it is the arrival of summer in its loyal promise to don its sun just for me, for one minuscule moment of time, flooding its heat over my yearningly aged body with a bright touch of blue, all the way to the tips of my toes…the sensation in me ebbing in waves…or, maybe I am infected with that delicious microbe reappearing in my young self’s eyes yet once again, for no reason at all…I am taken aback by the irresistible chime of the break-fast bell under the wings of a dove about to land on my nostalgia for Sinop…

Can Yücel is said to have been a lover of serenity, the simple life, whose images always reminded me of the Sinopian in the first picture but even more so after I learned how this famous Turkish poet had preferred to live  – not necessarily in a self-made hut but certainly catering to uncomplicated living. I admit: my obsession with remote areas and simplicity in all aspects of existence tends to overwhelm me when I least expect an ambush of that nature. Such as today. When the air in my study began to thicken taking away my breath, while my desire to materialize their reality intensified. No such luck! Therefore, I spanned overseas where both of these men special in their own unique ways lived and died. What a pity! I wasn’t moved to a new poem I could share with you. However, I lowered my translation bridge to one of Yücel’s poems…

Ukte

Dünyamın güzeli martılar
Sizden nasıl da yok yere korkmuşum
Kaşık Ada’nın orda!

Dalın üstüme dalın
Vurun beni, vurun
Denizanası kokan gagalarınızla!
Ah sizden ben nasıl da yok yere korkmuşum!

Bilmiyordum ki çünkü
Ben hem balığım hem kuşum

Ben ama hala anlayamıyorum ki
Bunca zaman niye sizden ayrı oturmuşum

Regret

My precious seagulls

How I had been fearing you for nothing

On the Island of Kaşık!

Plunge into me plunge

Strike me, strike

With your bills of jellyfish smell!

Alas! How I had been fearing you for nothing!

For I knew not

A fish also a bird I am

But I still can’t understand

Why all this time I lived apart from you