By: Wendy E. Braun

*This following poem is a work that originated from a translation, in which I compounded my drafts of the original translations into a single poem. The original poem, About Living, was written in Turkish by Nazim Hikmet.

This world will have grown cold,
will have stopped,
among the stars,
between the stars,
just and only a star,
like the others,
one of the smallest
in the sea of blue velvet,
just a golden glimmer,
a shimmer,
a speck I mean,
I mean this, this that is our universe.

This world will grow cold one day,
will stop one day,
turning into a glacier,
a heap of ice even,
or a cloud, dead
not even empty like a walnut
dipped into darkness,
rounded and boundless,
it will roll into
the deep density of infinite space.

Already you must mourn
the pangs from where
the pain is drawn,
you must feel the pit
swell of sorrow, already
you must love this world
so much
if you are to say
“I have lived.”