Oh Nazim!

John Berger once wrote to you, in his grief over losing a friend. I understand why. Now I write to you too, not in grief, but in simple loneliness. At 2am on a quiet night you speak to me. I bow my head in humility; with an exhausted, but lighter heart I go to sleep, comforted by your words.


Invitation
Nazim Hikmet (1902 - 1963)

Galloping from Far Asia and jutting out
into the Mediterranean like a mare's head
this country is ours.

Wrists in blood, teeth clenched, feet bare
and this soil spreading like a silk carpet,
this hell, this paradise is ours.

Shut the gates of plutocracy, don't let them open again,
annihilate man's servitude to man,
this invitation is ours.

To live like a tree single and at liberty
and brotherly like the trees of a forest,
this yearning is ours.