NAZIM HIKMET

At eighteen you sleep without memories.

However and wherever we are, we must live as if we will never die.

I'm only seven, although I died In Hiroshima long ago, I'm seven now as I was then - When children die, they do not grow.

When the light of the star which flows into my eyes as a drop of gold first pierced the darkness in space, there was not a single eye on earth looking at the sky.

Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel for example - I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation.

I've never regretted I was born too soon. I'm proud to be a child of the twentieth century. I'm satisfied to join its ranks on our side and fight for a new world.

My country or the stars Or my youth, what's farthest?

We'll dive into the earth together. And if one day a wild flower finds water and springs up from that piece of earth, its stem will have two blooms for sure: one will be you, the other me.

At eighteen the heart shoots like a pebble from a slingshot and the head doesn't sit on the shoulder.

That's how it goes, my friend. The problem is not falling a captive, it's how to avoid surrender.

Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel for example - I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation.

However and wherever we are, we must live as if we will never die.

And don't forget, a prisoner's wife must always think good thoughts.

I'm only seven, although I died In Hiroshima long ago, I'm seven now as I was then - When children die, they do not grow.

I've never regretted I was born too soon. I'm proud to be a child of the twentieth century. I'm satisfied to join its ranks on our side and fight for a new world.

Welcome baby it's your turn to live they're laying for you chicken pox whooping cough smallpox malaria TB heart disease cancer and so on unemployment hunger and so on train wrecks bus accidents plane crashes on-the-job injuries earthquakes floods droughts and so on heartbreak alcoholism and so on nightsticks prisons doors and so on they're laying for you the atom bomb and so on welcome baby it's your turn to live they're laying for you socialism communism and so on.

At eighteen the heart shoots like a pebble from a slingshot and the head doesn't sit on the shoulder.

My country or the stars Or my youth, what's farthest?

When the light of the star which flows into my eyes as a drop of gold first pierced the darkness in space, there was not a single eye on earth looking at the sky.

That's how it goes, my friend. The problem is not falling a captive, it's how to avoid surrender.

At eighteen you don't think about memories, you tell them.

At eighteen you sleep without memories.

We'll dive into the earth together. And if one day a wild flower finds water and springs up from that piece of earth, its stem will have two blooms for sure: one will be you, the other me.