I want to die before you.
Do you suppose that
the one who comes later
will find the one who has already gone?
I don’t think so.

You’d better have me burned and
keep me in a jar on the stove in your room.
The jar should be made of glass,
transparent, white glass
so that you can see me in it.

You see my sacrifice:
I gave up being soil,
I gave up being flower,
just to be able to stay by you.
And I’m becoming dust
for living near you.

Later, when you die as well,
you come into my jar.
And we live there together,
your ash within mine,
until an untidy bride
or an unfaithful grandchild
throws us away…

But till then
we will so much mix with eachother that
even in the dump into which we’re thrown,
our motes will fall side to side.

We will sink into the soil together.
And if a wild flower
gets damp from this piece of soil and blossoms one day,
two flowers will certainly bloom on its stem:
One is you
And the other is me.

I don’t think of death yet.
I will give birth to one more child.
Life is overflowing inside me.
I’m still full of beans.
I will live but for a long time, very long time,
but together with you.
In fact death doesn’t frighten me as well.
I just find our funeral ceremony
very unlikable.
But this probably gets better,
until I die.
Do you have a possibility to get out of prison nowadays?
Something inside me says:
Maybe.

Comments on: "I Want To Die Before You by Nazim Hikmet" (1)

  1. Cansu said:

    Nice poem😍👌

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