NIGHT WAS MY DREAM (DÜŞÜMDÜ GECE)

Three sisters and brothers were we, just before the windows were broken

Brought up were we, in the houses with gardens without trees

An ill-omened winter was it. Maybe in December

In the dead of winter, if ever it disturbed mother

Never had we ever seen such a downpour piercing in the houses

A crimson love, a crimson sunset, growing up were we, slowly and silently

An overpouring despair was it, in fact, the make-believe prayer and the night

There is something that is clutched and never lets go

I am I and not am I that I

In such a way that the autumn

Is crashing into the evenings of mine madly

If I ever think a bit more

We were brothers and sisters, is what I can say. night was my dream

And, then, we departed from the town

That address was lost, as that flood was

Two corpses and a wounded body in his throat. all is over,

That was what the youngest of all was saying

The torn photographs of a house by the bank of the frozen lake

That is what I remember when I force my memory

Never had we ever met before, maybe not at all

Never had we ever been in a battlefield

Never had we known how the blood flowed, nor how the warm blood froze

All of a sudden, our hands over our mouths, as if signalling to keep silent

We never kept silent ever

Whenever a tree falls down

Whenever the time looks as if it is crimson

Three sisters and brothers were we. that was the fact. the carbon paper was torn apart

Did we have names that we were called by, or colours

Nothing at all. How should I know

Wake me up, oh life. Find a well deep inside me

Because three brothers and sisters were we. That is what I remember

Derya ÖNDER

(Translated into English by Aysu ERDEN)

* * * * * * * * * * * *

düşümdü gece 

biz üç kardeştik camlar kırılmadan önce

avlusunda ağaç olmayan evlerde büyümüştük

uğursuz bir kıştı. belki aralık

zemheri derdi, olaydı annem  

görmemiştik daha önce evlere giren bir yağmur

kızıl bir aşk. kızıl akşam. büyüyorduk usul usul  

taşkın bir kederdi oysa yalandan dua ve gece  

bir şey var, tutunup bırakmayan

hem benim hem değilim ben

öyle ki güz deli gibi

çarpıyor akşamlarıma  

biraz daha düşünsem

diyebilirim kardeştik. düşümdü gece

sonra ayrıldık şehirden  

o adres de yitip gitti o sel de  

gırtlağında iki ölü bir yaralı. bitti, diyordu küçüğü

buz tutmuş göl kıyısında yırtık ev fotoğrafları

öyle hatırlıyorum beynimi zorladıkça  

biz hiç tanışmadık belki de

savaşa da gitmedik

bilmedik nasıl akar, nasıl donar sıcak kan

birdenbire bir sus gibi ellerimiz ağzımızda  

susmadık da  

ne zaman devrilse bir ağaç

zaman kırmızıya çalsa  

biz üç kardeştik. öyleydi. yırtıldı karbon kağıdı

var mıydı çağrılacak bir adımız, bir rengimiz

bir şey işte. ne bileyim  

uyandır beni ey hayat. içimde bir kuyu bul

çünkü üç kardeştik biz. öyle hatırlıyorum