THE DAGGER

Back in the fall we had buried our dagger
In this courtyard covered with square tiles.
That dagger was both precious and sharp.
Its handle must have melted away by now
Looking like the mossy hair of the herdsmen.

The blood of worms and hawks must be clinging
Onto its skeleton lying in the ground.
Spilling all over the blood-tiles of the yard
The blood of the hawks that sent their flight
Deep down in the form of a dishevelled line.

The sea has lit the lamps on its streets.
The dagger received its only defeat from us.
Out of the land of its spouts it gazes at night,
At birds that cling to their wings as they fall.
We received our final defeat from the dagger.

For some reason it frightens the gray silence
Of a beggar's voice and the mountaineers' sky,
It frightens the faces of rope-hearted seamen
Who cross the seas each with a panther on its back:
That noise which the dagger makes while rusting.

ULKU TAMER

Translated by Talat Sait Halman.
(Literature East & West, March 1973)