AHMET KUTSI TECER
(1901-1967)

TO A MIGRANT FARMWORKER

A quilt over your shoulders, sack in your hand
You're the seasonal worker, the great migrant
Since you were born--you, your mother, your father
Wielded hoe and sickle, farmed for a day's wage

You, your mother, your father you the landless
I recognize you all from the long long roads
You, oh teeming mass of the vastly alone!
The One who made us created you as well.

The land you sowed and harvested is your land
Its troubles are yours, yours its pain and torments
If paradise be the grainery of God
It's too small to hold your abundant sorrows

As for paradise, it was God's idea,
From the very first when this world was founded
When you cast your forbearance onto the earth
This lovely fantasy caused God to shudder

You, oh teeming mass of the vastly alone!
The One who made us created you as well
Oh you, seasonal worker, you the landless,
This soil is your soil, this homeland yours

Translated by Walter G. Andrews

RAIN-RIMMED HORIZONS

Rain-rimmed horizons seal off the dry ground
Where a fretful light scuttles here and there;
As mad thunderbolts rattle and resound,
Might and rage and fear mingle together.

Like a feudal lord, God paces around
In his mansion--alone and defiant;
And suddenly the most savage bloodhound
Begins to chase a bloodcurdling giant.

Translated by Talat Sait Halman

 

ALL TOO CLEAR

My death, it's all too clear, shall come at dawn
With the first fearful light through the wlndow
Let the drapes by my bedside remain drawn;
Don't put out last night's candle, let it glow.

In slippers, run to City Hall and say:
"One of my lodgers died early today."
They'll send in a hearse to take me away.
Also, let a few of my buddies know.

When strong shoulders carry my coffin through,
Forget my name as all others will too;
Keep my door ajar for a day or two
So that my few items may watch me go.

Translated by Talat Sait Halman
 

AHMET KUTSI TECER (1901-1967) He graduated from the Department of Philosophy at Istanbul University in 1930, then continued his studies in Paris. Returning to Turkey, he began teaching in high schools in Ankara and Sivas and was later appointed as educational attache in Paris (1949-1951). Ahmet Kutsi Tecer published his first poems in the journals Dergah and Milli Mecmua (1921-1925). He developed an original poetic voice, producing very personal and sentimental poems on Anatolia and its people. POETRY: Siirler (1932). PLAY: Kosebasi (1947), Bir Pazar Gunu (1959), Kocyigit Koglulu (1969). CRITICISM: Koylu TemsilciLeri (1940).