First Words of Sadness

Ahmet OKTAY

FIRST WORDS OF SADNESS

Old lovers! The rose gardens
I spent my nights in. All I wrote
and all I said, I did to unveil
the secret
with a new
secret.

-Why does the road
lead in three directions:
forward, backward and to the side?-
asked the child
on black days
when we lose
even our own image
in the mirror.

You who
remembers me
less
than a rainy day:
says Attar:
"How can a stray soul
answer your question?"

Who shed each
other
like leaves? Is that Per Gynt
or an onion? Is there ever a snowy
day that does not dream
of a blooming night?

Twin meanings! "Twin
Destinies!"
How the marks
of a homecoming and departure intermingle
and the rose rotting on the ground
is sign of life.

I, too, soaked myself for years
in the ink of sorrow,
thinking I would ripen.
In my
shaking
hand the pen borrowed from Sontag
and the pain it leaks:
in or out
"all journeys were made
to write and only write".

Old lovers! The first
and sad words
of a conversation that starts
with death.

Translated by Şehnaz Tahir