Nazim Hikmet

Translated, from the Turkish, by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk

Noon in Prague

     Master Hanus's Clock

It stopped snowing first on the hill,
                 up by Prague Castle.
Then, suddenly, a cool blue
         descended on the chestnuts, clear
               and soft.
                     And with a gentle glow.
                     
The poet, far from home
and riddled with longing,
stood all alone
              in the square in Old Town.
High on a Gothic wall,
                    Master Hanus's clock
                            struck noon.
                            
In their gilt robes,
St. Peter at the head,
the tired twelve apostles
           emerged from the clock.
And Judas with his purse
and faith, cruelty and evil.
"And we no sooner came than here we're leaving."
And a stone janissary there below
           in his solitary sorrow.
And Death tolling the bells
and, above, a cock crowing.

The poet, far from home
and riddled with longing,
            looked on, elsewhere.
A soft, cool blue
             descended on the square
                      at noon.
                   
          29 December 1956

Falling Leaves

I've read about falling leaves in fifty thousand poems novels and so on
watched leaves falling in fifty thousand movies
seen leaves fall fifty thousand times
       fall drift and rot
felt their dead shush shush fifty thousand times
       underfoot in my hands on my fingertips
but I'm still touched by falling leaves
       especially those falling on boulevards
       especially chestnut leaves
       and if kids are around
       if it's sunny
       and I've got good news for friendship
especially if my heart doesn't ache
and I believe my love loves me
especially if it's a day I feel good about people
       I'm touched by falling leaves
especially those falling on boulevards
especially chestnut leaves

             6 September 1961
             Leipzig

A Fable of Fables

We stand at the source,
the plane tree and I.
Our images reflect
off the river.
The water-dazzle
lights up the plane tree and me.

We stand at the source,
the plane tree, me, and the cat.
Our images reflect
off the river.
The water-dazzle
lights up the plane tree, me, and the cat.

We stand at the source,
the plane tree, me, the cat, and the sun.
Our images reflect
off the river.
The water-dazzle
lights up the plane tree, me, the cat, and the sun.

We stand at the source,
the plane tree, me, the cat, the sun, and our lives.
Our images reflect
off the river.
The water-dazzle
lights up the plane tree, me, the cat, the sun, and our lives.

We stand at the source.
The cat will be the first to go,
its image in the water will dissolve.
Then I will go,
my image in the water will dissolve.
Then the plane tree will go,
its image in the water will dissolve.
Then the river will go,
the sun alone remaining,
and then it, too, will go.

---

Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963), the foremost modern Turkish poet, was a political prisoner in Turkey for thirteen years and spent the last thirteen years of his life in exile. Banned in his native land for thirty years, his poetry has been translated into more than fifty languages. Randy Blasing, a former NEA Translation Fellow, recently published his sixth book of poems, Second Home (Copper Beech). Mutlu Konuk, a native of Istanbul, is a professor of English at Brown; her critical books include American Poetry (Yale) and Politics and Form in Postmodern Poetry (Cambridge). Together they will publish their seventh and eighth books of translation with Persea in the spring of 2002, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Hikmet's birth: a revised and expanded edition of Poems of Nazim Hikmet and an uncut version of Human Landscapes from My Country, the first complete English translation of his epic novel in verse. contents | next