ONCE UPON A TIME

From behind each tree you appeared
in such great numbers that I felt alone,
and amid the gust of your mad movements
my laffer against the fortress whirled away.

I met you at the corner of each street,
you were so absent that I cried, lost myself.
Within clouds reminiscent of ancient seas
floated rocks gnawed down with your blood.

What a pity! You vanished in great numbers
as if coexistent with a time that never was.
I bent and picked up the sky from the ground,
the sky you had carelessly dropped, dropped.

Oktay Rifat
Translated by Taner Baybars