Ayşe Tekşen
Raining Dust
It’s raining dust now
all over me.
Small particles of
God-knows-what
rushing through
the little piece of sunlight
my small window clenches.
Little things I deserve,
I suppose.
Only little.
Big joys left years ago,
and I have learnt
to find pleasure
in such little things;
a little dust,
a little dirt,
a little filth
pouring onto me.
True rain is scarce now.
Where would I place
all the joy and the rain
if they happen to
come my way
one day anyway?
Where?
I guess I could only
dig a pit with
my dirty hands
and put them in.
And only later,
some time later,
I would decide to cover it
or to leave it uncovered
forever.
Birth of Hope
(A Musing on Taner Ceylan’s Painting “Birth of Hope”)
When red is splashed
onto a canvas of white feathers,
would the white canvas
turn pink or red?
The white bride-like peacock
oil-painted onto the canvas
fears the possibility
that Ceylan’s crafty hands
can turn it into red
at any second.
It seems to deny
this lecherous possibility
just as we always deny
we were born
to find the red in life,
for light comes in red.
This is what we forget.
It first emerges in red,
then gradually becomes white,
that blinding whiteness
in front of our eyes.
We close our eyes
to the redness,
only to find more
and a deeper redness
behind our own eyelids.
And if we continue
keeping our eyes wide shut
to the idea of hope,
we only find a darkness
more dazzling than
the dark river of hair
the beautiful Turkish girl
Nilay possesses.
Just like the color red,
hope is everywhere.
Even Nilay carries it,
and she is also burdened with it.
