IS THIS LOVE ?

THE MEDITERRANEAN IS IN HARMONY WITH YOU

The stars sweat and you are sweating too

The same wet sparkle is on your nostrils

The noise of the motor boats does not stop

The dogs bark in the distance

A moment ago a child cried

A sheet is being shaken out from Fatma's window

Ali Dumdum is swearing for hours on end

The fishermen beat the sea

These sounds are like the earth swelling the silence

It is the silence garrulous of your geraniums

We lay on the veranda last night the offshore summer breeze above us

My hands still smell of thyme

It was as though

I didn't sleep with you but was wandering the mountains

I learned from you how to write of the sea

The blue pencil is always in my hand

Like a fishing boat goes out on a trip

my teacher wife goes to school

I open out behind hertracing a north wind in my exercise book

There is an island that is just shearwatersit turns and turns in my head

The days I've lived with you became a silver circle

when your sun touched my life

I found at last that smugglers' cave as you dazzled my eyes open

Death is perhaps like washing in those dark waters stolen from you,

greener than seaweed when still,

but blue after blue soaring with every fathom

I thought my losses, my débris, my alcoholic works

all belonged to this flat world

How was I to know I was on the peak of my happiness

I understood when I went out with you

You know those ancient Greek horses with their curly manesthe trees

with their projections are like them

when the day turns to evening

The Balan Peaks marchcompanies of souls march

towards the wholeness of beauty

My woman

you are in harmony with the Mediterranean.
Can Yücel