Perhaps they tell you my name, as my face breaks up in a broken mirror. What do you expect from a silhouette? Let water pour from my tear-filled eyes and let us go silent together, time and again, in darkness. So that different scents may mature, rising from the body of life, flowing to us, around us. Filling to fullness, with all-new aromas. Other suns are dawning, can you see them? As last the knot of love is being undone. I've been embraced, I've seen, I've come. If we have no names how can we be known? Your inner sea is clear in poetry. I don't know the face of the new-born moon. Let the knot of love unfold like a flower. Let it shine without shadow, as soft as April's suns. I can't see the new star it's shining power is blinding. I open my eyes in the cinnamon garden. At last, courage is blooming like spring buds. My burden lends its weight to earth, my back is light, oh life! I am embraced.
First stanza – Ilhan Sami Çomak, Silivri Prison, March 2020
Second stanza – Caroline Stockford, Bristol, April 2020
Translated from Turkish by C.Stockford