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to Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963)
You and your poems spilling juice, hello
to everybody; you were the mailman, you said, spring
in the bag of your heart, and I believe you;
deliver us oranges in all seasons so that we do not forget
to eat, drink, swallow; sometimes people forget
the necessity of smelling roses, forget love, hazelnuts, everything!
Sometimes, we need a poet.
You and your wives, five of them. I’m not judging.
Often, I am sour to my husband when he is sweet to me.
Did your marriages make stars,
grow the tree inside you, the one you wished?
You and your trees… Say a poet
was a fruit, you would be an orange, all zest, even prison
zings, it’s how you spite guards
who deny oranges; the fruit on your tree sings
like birds, you said, and I believe
the ability to sing after decades at the detention yard,
I hear your bird by red prison tiles, jewel in your chest
beating. A tree keeps growing. Love…
What is the purpose of an orange, if not hello
to everybody, even guards?
Don’t forget red apples, poppy fields, Bosphorus – who can resist that
way to be human, remind me that my husband
is sweeping leaves in the yard, he wears his rust-coloured T-shirt, close to
orange; by good luck I can walk out the door, say
hello to my husband, and I do. Sometimes, we need a poet.