Nazim Hikmet

                                                                                  

CHAT WITH DEAD NEZVAL

Soon after you gone,

weather got cold, snowed.

When it happens like this,

skies and streams cries

for whom just died

But you know, it's spring time,

13th of April, a bright day

Prague  smiles,

even there at the cemetery,

your name is uttered  like a pray,

your photograph with black lace

displayed at the window.

Perhaps weather will get bad again

even May is coming...

Prague, May, you know,

greener, and golden yellow,

once the young girls hit the streets

grief is mobbed as if it cleared from window pans.

and the grief left from you

will disappear like your shadows from sidewalks

of Prague! that is world...in fact

for deaths who loved the life, smart

deaths with good heart,

don't ask mourning for forty days,

neither they say :  " hell , after  I am gone ".

they leave a useful thing, a word ,

a tree, a smile,

and walk away

and they don't share

with alive ones

darkness of their tombs

and alone carry

weight of the stone

since they have not asked anything

from alive ones, they feel they'

never died...

I know you Nevzal,

you are one of them,

good hearted  Praquean

who loved the world, smart

you are one of those deaths...

 They called me from phone,

we must apart, what a pitty

So long brother Nezval,

in our world again

sweetest fruit : lightness...

April 20, 1958