To the Same Sea

This poem is a translation of an original Turkish text. While care has been taken to preserve its meaning, rhythm, and imagery, the original language inevitably carries nuances, resonances, and emotional textures that cannot be fully transferred. This version should be read as an interpretation rather than a replacement.

Neither are you the one you were, nor am I the one I was;
nor are we as pristine as we once were.
Mars is no longer blue,
the atlases are weary.
The earth has been a mother to many a brave soul;
yet time itself, just as thankless a homeland. No river is the same river,
nor are we the same we were. Time passed between us, like a master tailor:
at times tightening our souls,
at times tearing the seam away.
Are patches a cure
for rusted memories?
Sentences now crash into other meanings;
what washes onto our shores
is the wreckage of a language. This weary fabric left in hand—
neither a cloak,
nor a sail.
As days passed mimicking one another,
we seeped into another tongue,
without even noticing. Now, which wind
shall scatter this heavy smoke? Once, “waiting” was a possibility;
now, it is a geography.
Once, “leaving” was a verb;
now, a destiny.
Names have worn out,
faces have faded,
and we— In the recesses of this foreign tongue,
hand in hand. Still, what lies behind us
is not a remnant:
it is a river
carving its bed with its own heart.
And when the smoke clears,
in that lucid dawn,
it will be seen that
the Euphrates
still reaches the same sea… Perhaps no river ever flows backward;
yet some shores
remember the water that passed.
And some people—
remain
by changing.