'The Table'

from the Turkish of Edip Cansever (poet)




A man filled with the gladness of living put his keys on the table, Put flowers in a copper bowl there. He put his eggs and milk on the table.


He put there the light that came in through the window, sound of a bicycle, sound of a spinning wheel. The softness of bread and weather he put there.


On the table the man put things that happened in his mind. What he wanted to do in life, he put that there. Those he loved, those he didn't love, he put them on the table too.


Three times three makes nine; he put nine on the table. He was next to the window, next to the sky; he reached out and placed on the table endlessness.


So many days he had wanted to drink a beer. He put on the table the pouring of that beer.


He placed there his sleep and his wakefulness; his hunger and his fullness he placed there. Now that's what I call a table! It didn't complain at all about the load. It wobbled once or twice, and then stood firm. The man kept piling things on.

William Carlos Williams

A LOVE SONG

What have I to say to you
When we shall meet?
Yet—
I lie here thinking of you.

The stain of love
Is upon the world.
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
It eats into the leaves,
Smears with saffron
The horned branches that lean
Heavily
Against a smooth purple sky.

There is no light—
Only a honey-thick stain
That drips from leaf to leaf
And limb to limb
Spoiling the colours
Of the whole world.

I am alone.
The weight of love
Has buoyed me up
Till my head
Knocks against the sky.

See me!
My hair is dripping with nectar—
Starlings carry it
On their black wings.
See, at last
My arms and my hands
Are lying idle.

How can I tell
If I shall ever love you again
As I do now?

Fragments from a long time ago...

I

Time goes by,

People shed their previous selves like moulting skin-

Old letters are burnt and windows are opened after days -

The world outside unsettles the layers of dust, Someone sneezes,

The naked lightbulb flickers and then dies.

The wooden floorboard has rotted with neglect and where the flowers grew now moss creeps through the cracks. The light slowly fades in the west and silences seep through the damp. My vision grows hazy and the heart feels numb.

II

Indeed time goes by,

I never hear from you now...

You never speak to me in my dreams,

The neighbour's children have outgrown their shoes,

and you have forgotten your friends.

Somedays I forget to sleep,

The heart is weary of waiting,

The clockface is made of sheer stone.

III

Your face seems but a distant memory

and your voice a hallucination from the past.

I hold on to the pen and the parchment you brought for me from Egypt,

for I lack the courage to throw them in the bin.

They keep me company for when the missing starts

and threatens to swallow me whole.