April 25: A Strange Feeling
Martha
A Strange Feeling
Nâzim Hikmet
“The plum trees
are in bloom
—the wild apricot flowers first,
the plum last —
My love,
let’s sit
face to face
on the grass.
The air is delicious and light
—but not really warm yet—
the almond shells are green
and fuzzy, still
very soft . . .
We’re happy
because we’re alive,
We’d probably have been killed long ago
if you were in London,
if I were in Tobruk or on an English freighter . . .
Put your hands on your knees, my love
—your wrists thick and white—
and open your left hand:
the daylight is inside your palm
like an apricot . . .
Of the people killed in yesterday’s air raid,
about one hundred were under five,
twenty-four still babies . . .
I love the color of pomegranate seeds, my love
—a pomegranate seed, seed of light—
I like melons tart . . .”
. . . . . . a rainy day
far from fruits and you
—not a single tree has bloomed yet,
and there’s even a chance of snow—
in Bursa Prison,
carried away by a strange feeling
and about to explode,
I write this out of pigheadedness—
out of sheer spite — for myself and for the people I love.
2.7.1941
----
(Written during the Turkish poet's 1938-1950 political imprisonment for supporting Communism.)
Also by Nâzim Hikmet: It’s This Way
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+ from Understory, Craig Santos Perez
+ We Lived Happily During the War, Ilya Kaminsky
+ Easter, Jill Alexander Essbaum
+ The Conditional, Ada Limón
+ The Crunch, Charles Bukowski
Previously on Poetry Month Poems for People Who Read Poetry:
2025: a remix for remembrance, Kristiana Rae Colón
2024: from Moon for Aisha, Aracelis Girmay
2023: Still Life with Nursing Bra, Keetje Kuipers
2022: A Small-Sized Mystery, Jane Hirshfield
2021: Prayer for My Unborn Niece or Nephew, Ross Gay
2020: Vigil, Phillis Levin
2019: Nights in the Neighborhood, Linda Gregg
2018: I Dreamed Again, Anne Michaels
2017: wishes for sons, Lucille Clifton
2016: Told You So, Keetje Kuipers
2015: Accident, Mass. Ave., Jill McDonough
2014: This Hour and What Is Dead, Li-Young Lee
2013: To Myself, Franz Wright
2012: Manet’s Olympia, Margaret Atwood
2011: Three Rivers, Alpay Ulku
2010: Ode to Hangover, Dean Young
2009: We become new, Marge Piercy
2008: The Only Animal, Franz Wright
2007: Dream Song 385, John Berryman
2006: The Quiet World, Jeffrey McDaniel
2005: Man and Wife, Robert Lowell