A loose translation of Nazım Hikmet’s ‘Bugün Pazar’.

A portrait of Nazım, done by his mother.

Today is sunday

today is sunday
today, for the first time, they
took me out to the sun
and I, for the first time in my life,
saw how
so far
so azure
so wide
was the sky,
and stood petrified
in awe

then I sat on earth in marvel
and leaned my back to the wall
at this moment,
neither the waves
nor the fall
at this moment,
neither the struggle
nor the strife,
neither my freedom,
nor my wife,
the earth, the sun and I
am glad to be alive