AGE THIRTY-FIVE
The age is thirty-five! Half of the way!
We're in the middle of life like a Dante.
The fire we felt at the time of our youth,
When complaining is no use any longer,
Goes out without caring about tears.
Did it snow on my temples or what's this?
God, this wrinkled face belongs to me?
Or those purple bulges beneath my eyes?
Why did you become enemy to me,
Oh the mirrors I knew as friends for years.
How the man changes with time!
The man at those pictures is not me.
Oh those days, my desires, and excitement!
This cheerful man is not me.
That I lack of troubles is but a lie.
My first love like only a dream,
Is now strange even as a memory.
Our ways separated, one by one;
With the friends we began our lives,
My loneliness gradually increases.
There was also another colour of sky!
I recognized a stone hard so late.
Water would drown man, fire would burn!
Everyday, rising, is a trouble,
One understands when he comes to this age.
Quince's yellow, pomegranate's red autumns!
Which I accept a little further each year.
Why are the birds still circling around at sky?
Why is this funeral? Who died again?
How many such gardens did I see topsy-turvy?
What can you do, death comes to all us.
You fall asleep; and you don't wake up.
Who knows, where, how, at what age?
You will have a single prayer long sovereignty,
By the grave stone as if it was your throne.
Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı
The age is thirty-five! Half of the way!
We're in the middle of life like a Dante.
The fire we felt at the time of our youth,
When complaining is no use any longer,
Goes out without caring about tears.
Did it snow on my temples or what's this?
God, this wrinkled face belongs to me?
Or those purple bulges beneath my eyes?
Why did you become enemy to me,
Oh the mirrors I knew as friends for years.
How the man changes with time!
The man at those pictures is not me.
Oh those days, my desires, and excitement!
This cheerful man is not me.
That I lack of troubles is but a lie.
My first love like only a dream,
Is now strange even as a memory.
Our ways separated, one by one;
With the friends we began our lives,
My loneliness gradually increases.
There was also another colour of sky!
I recognized a stone hard so late.
Water would drown man, fire would burn!
Everyday, rising, is a trouble,
One understands when he comes to this age.
Quince's yellow, pomegranate's red autumns!
Which I accept a little further each year.
Why are the birds still circling around at sky?
Why is this funeral? Who died again?
How many such gardens did I see topsy-turvy?
What can you do, death comes to all us.
You fall asleep; and you don't wake up.
Who knows, where, how, at what age?
You will have a single prayer long sovereignty,
By the grave stone as if it was your throne.
Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı