Nazim Hikmet

a poem by Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet

from "Beyond the Walls - Selected Poems of Nazim Hikmet"

Bees

Bees like big drops of honey,
bees carrying vines to the sun, came flying out of my youth:
these apples too are from there,
these heavy apples,
this golden-dusty road,
these white pebbles along the stream,
my belief in folksong,
my lack of envy,
and this cloudless day,
this blue day
the sea hot, stripped bare, lying back,
this longing,
the gleaming teeth of a full lipped mouth,
they came out of my youth
to this Caucasian village
like big drops of honey on the feet of bees,
from somewhere in my forgotten youth,
from somewhere;
I never had enough of that somewhere.

13 September, 1958