Karakoy port

Karakoy sea side and boats

Eminonu, Galata Bridge and colorful boats ... taken from Karakoy with Pentax K10D

Like This

 

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.

When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this.

If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "God’s fragrance" means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.

 

When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this.

If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.

When someone asks what it means
to "die for love," point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.

 

When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.
Like this.

 

I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.

When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.

 

How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.
How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.

When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us
Like this.

 

From ‘The Essential Rumi’, Translations
by Coleman Barks with John Moyne

 

Karakoy streets

Let go of your worries
and be completely clear-hearted,
like the face of a mirror
that contains no images.
If you want a clear mirror,
behold yourself
and see the shameless truth,
which the mirror reflects.
If metal can be polished
to a mirror-like finish,
what polishing might the mirror
of the heart require?
Between the mirror and the heart
is this single difference:
the heart conceals secrets,
while the mirror does not.

Hz. Mevlana

The Divani Shamsi Tabriz, XIII

Karakoy sea side

Eminonu view from Karakoy sea side

 

Invitation

 

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.

 

Nazım Hikmet

translation by Fuat Engin