TODAY IS SUNDAY

Today is Sunday. For the first time they took me out into the sun today. And for the first time in my life I was aghast that the sky is so far away

         and so blue 
         and so vast
             I stood there without a motion.

Then I sat on the ground with respectful devotion leaning against the white wall. Who cares about the waves with which I yearn to roll Or about strife or freedom or my wife right now. The soil, the sun and me... I feel joyful and how.

NAZIM HIKMET

Translated by Talat Sait Halman. (Literature East & West, March 1973)