How Beautiful It Is to Think of You
How beautiful it is to think of you
amid the cries of death and victory,
to think of you when you’re in prison,
and when you’ve passed your forties.
Ah, how beautiful it is to think of you:
look—an abandoned hand on a blue cloth,
and here, among your hair,
lies the gentle pride of my homeland, Istanbul.
It is like another man inside me,
the happiness of loving you.
How beautiful it is to think of you:
to write for you,
to watch you lying on your back, in my cell.
A word you said that day, in that place,
was not just a word in itself,
but the way you carried an entire world within it.
How beautiful it is to think of you:
I still want to carve something for you,
to build a coffin,
a ring,
even three meters of silk cloth.
And then to leap to my feet,
to rush to the bars of the window,
and shout with all my might to the blue sky of freedom
everything I’ve ever written for you.
