I've learned some things
by Ataol Behramoglu
- I've learned some things from having lived:
- If you're alive, experience one thing with all your power
- Your beloved should be worn out from being kissed
- And you should drop exhausted from the smelling of a flower
- A person can gaze at the sky for hours
- Can gaze for hours at a bird, a child, the sea
- To live on the earth is to become part of it
- To strike down roots that won't pull free
- If you cling to anything, tightly hold a friend
- Fight for something with every muscle, whole body, all your passion
- And if you lay yourself for a time on the warm beach
- Let yourself rest like a grain of sand, a leaf, a stone
- To your utmost, listen to every beautiful song
- As though filling all the self with sound and melody
- One should plunge head-first into life
- As one dives from a cliff into the emerald sea
- Distant lands should draw you, people you don't know
- To read every book, know other's lives, you should be burning
- You shouldn't exchange for anything the pleasure of a glass of water
- No matter how much the joy, your life should be filled with yearning
- You should know sorrow, honorably, with all your being
- Because the pains, like joys, make a person grow
- Your blood should mingle in the great circulation of life
- And in your veins life's endless fresh blood should flow
- I've learned some things from having lived:
- If you're alive, experience largely, merge with rivers, heavens, cosmos
- For what we call living is a gift given to life
- And life is a gift bestowed upon us
from "Yasadiklarimdan Ogrendigim Bir Sey Var"
Translation by Walter Andrews