Nazim Hikmet from On Living

 

This earth will grow cold
a star among stars,
and one of the smallest too,
a gilded granule in blue velvet, I mean,
I mean this tremendous world of ours.

This earth will grow cold one day,
and not like a chunk of ice
or a dead cloud-
it'll roll like an empty walnut shell
endlessly in the pitch black.

One must lament this now,
must feel this pain now.
This is how you must love the earth                     
so you can say "I've lived"......

Translated from the Turkish by Deniz Perin.

Nazim Himet is Turkey's most loved and most famous poet.