All the crimson stones on earth
Are smeared with gods blood.
And so it is these crimson stones
Instruct us in our youth.
God, beside us
In our childhood,
Touches our earrings,
Our necklaces too;
Enters our shoes, the folds
Of our girlish ribbons
And hides.
I should buy a crimson dress and bed,
A crimson ring
And lamp.
That time must come
When motherhood begins, then peters out.
Blood that knows to wait
Knows also to be stone.
Ive learnt, it hurts to be in this world.
Crimson dark
Blue dark
And the beginning
Must surely make sense, -
Neither god nor our mothers desert us.
BEJAN MATUR
Translated from the Turkish by George Messo
