Yesterday, whilst Zooming with fellow poets, I was introduced to “The Poem of Age 35”, by Turkish poet Cahit Sitki Taranci. I have never visited Turkey and know very little of Turkish culture. I was, however deeply impressed and moved by Cahit Sitki Taranci’s “The Poem of Age 35”. Hence I am sharing it here The Poem of Age 35 by Cahit Sitki Taranci – Eppur Si Muove
In early August
Leaves on the ground
Are blown around.
Autumn must
Come in with September.
I remember
Barefoot girls in summertime
And lust
Only half understood.
In woods
Autumn leaves become dust.
My blood
Still runs hot.
And the graveyard plot
Calls us all.
I am often told
That time
Is merely an illusion.
Yet rhyme
Has beginning and end.
And time
My ever present friend
Will stop
This ageing clock
In the end.
As I
Grow older, I
Doze more
In my armchair.
I wonder
When and Where
I will die.
My coffee grows cold,
And I old.
And here I sit
Playing the wit,
Until death calls time
On wit
And rhyme.
On hearing my clock chime
I think on Father Time.
I touch my grey hair
And wish for a woman ere
My ageing clock does finally stop
Ending time and my passing rhyme
My hair is thinning.
I drink and think
On sinning with women.
And, as I drink
I ponder on
Where my hair
Has upped and gone!
I must confess
That I obsess
On autumn leaves.
The trees
Are bare.
My hair
Has turned grey.
I could dye.
But each man’s day
Must end. my friend
50. Soon to be 51.
The year
Is here
And soon gone.
I cough in the early morning.
A warning?
Probably not,
But soon the year will be gone
And I shall reach the age of 51,
How many more have I got?
Young women
Will still
Laugh at my humour,
But grinning
Is not sinning
And ’tis no rumour
That I grow old.
Gold
May, they say
Buy
Much more than a smile
From a pretty maid
But the eye
Of lust
Must turn to dust
Once our part is played.
I kiss
And partake
In bliss,
Then wake
To my greying head
And an empty bed.
K Morris - Poet 