Handmade Histories
Written in English by Pelin Batu
Narrated by Bill Wolak
Turkey
All I can hear now
against the damp walls of Salacak
are voices of my relatives
like flowers on Russian scarves,
and requiems of Akhmatova,
hollowed for roses and cypresses
the bygone.
All that is past is far more vivid
in these crowded rooms.
I learn
how an old woman waited for her son
like a wounded beast,
as the prison guards stood
colder than statues,
no language of birds
on their narrow lips.
I learn
how with the verdant memory of wilder times
one does not hate
one does not love.
It becomes a gentle rain
letting us speak
a language of calm adjectives.
It is no tragedy, to have no story to tell.
Boats slide up and down the Bosphorus
the gigantic pendulums of my slow life.
I come to prefer yesterday
its succulent spoils.
I listen.
Pelin Batu is a Turkish poet, actor, and writer currently living in Istanbul. She has published five books of poetry, produced many works of translation, and made numerous cinema films and TV shows.