Incidence of Joy

 I entered your words like a story book
 and got lost in the forest of meaning.
 I found the clearing steeped in sunshine
 and there I saw your words in a spring pool.
 They swim like white fish, light particles
 stretching to transparency. I swam in your poems
 and was renewed. To be with all and one 
 is an instant revolution, bloodless, painless,
 a timeless transformation. You are so too,
 and so is poetry. Space is between us, and art.
 In the endless meadows I feel constrained
 There's a whole world in you, your view, four walls.
 Is not the great world a cage, for the closed-minded?
  
 I am purified by memories
 With the kernel from the fruit I stole in childhood 
 I will knock down all the walls
 Peaches, plums and nectarines, many a cherry.
 The original revolution began with love,
 with knowing the first wet taste of pears in my mouth
 With the tenderness of how I miss my mother 
 touching my forehead, my hair -
 My words have come out of the sun!
 Like a horse; a horse that parts the tide of crowds,
 Like the wind, swaying drunk behind a kite,
 and the unpassing sorrow of my sock when it steps in water.
 I multiply it, multiply and renew time.
 I write my self.
 The doveless days of no garden,
 The loops of season I can feel, the solitudes that kiss fear,
 It is hopeless for you to say, "I love you"
 Your saying so is just an incidence of joy, 
 solid patience of embracing with desire -
 That which overflows belongs to all!
 My window looks out at a wall! 


Stanza 1: Caroline Stockford, Bristol, May 2020
Stanza 2: İlhan Sami Çomak, Silivri Prison, Istanbul, July 2020

Translated by Caroline Stockford