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I love my country :
I have swung on its plane trees, I have stayed in its
prisons.
Nothing can overcome my spleen
as the songs and tobacco of my country.
My country :
Bedreddin, Sinan, Yunus Emre and Sakarya,
lead domes and factory chimneys
are all the work of my people
who even hiding from themselves
smile under their drooping mustaches.
My country.
My country is so large :
it seems that it is endless to go around.
Edirne, Izmir, Ulukıshla, Marash, Trabzon, Erzurum.
I know the Erzurum plateau only in its songs
and I am ashamed
not to have crossed Tauruses even once
to go to the cotton pickers
in the south.
My country :
camels, train, Fords and sick donkeys,
poplar
willow
and red earth.
My country.
The trout which likes
pine forests, best freshwaters and the lakes
at the top of mountains,
and at least half a kilo,
with red reflections on its scaleless, silver
skin
swims in the Abant
lake of Bolu.
My country :
goats on the Ankara plain :
the sheen of blond, silky, long furs.
The fat plump hazelnuts of Giresun.
The fragrant red-cheeked apples of Amasya,
olive
fig
melon
and of all colours
bunches and bunches of grapes
and then the plough
and then the black ox
and then : ready to accept
everything
advanced, beautiful and good
with the joyous admiration of a child
my hard-working, honest, brave people
half hungry, half
full
half slave...
Nazim Hikmet
translated from
Turkish by Fuat Engin
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