Between the Pagodas and the Caves, on the Marble Mountain (poetry)

Between the Pagodas and the Caves, on the Marble Mountain

Between the pagodas and the caves,

There is a hill where we can stare at our life.

From a distance, like we are someone else,

With a great depth, like we were never born.

The maps shows the road but none of us

has the tiniest piece of those maps.

That is why we keep trying and failing,

and some days we fail even without trying.

“Live like you are living the last day of the eternity” said the wise man

“Like it is the first day of your life; with curiosity, with desire”

I couldn’t resist the wise man’s words; as it requires passing many mountains.

This will be the only way to see the sea...

You can reach where others reach if you only follow the arrows on the path,

If you walk with confidence, others will follow you too.

If you say “no one follows me” then erase all the traces you leave behind.

There are uphills with no downhills and downhills with no uphills, record this.

If you seek for it, you will definitely find the shortcuts; why wasting time with mountains...

Instead, go around it and tell everyone “I climbed up and came down.”

All dead-end streets start with deceiving oneself, then spread to others.

The way transforms you, the shortcut keeps you as you are; the mountain makes your heart stronger; a ‘go-around’ makes you lazy.

Do you now understand why the roofs of pagodas lean toward the sky?

Because those who want to reach high points without leaving the self behind,

tidy up themselves by imitating curvature of the roof and learn the right way as if tuning with the help of an unknown instrument.

Different shades of red and green fill up the cracks of the self.

Some flat, some curved. The main outline of life does not accept the capstan lathe.

Our eyesights differ in numbers, our observations too, there are nuances.

It doesn’t matter how high you are at, if you don’t extend your hand to those who are below you

“No one gives hand from above; abyss will open up; you will fall in” says the wise man.

Being at the summit brings the responsibility and each of us must come down when needed.

In our days of flight numbers we are pressed as an almost-fallen staclactite in vestibules.

-Let the windows open to the sky once. – Carve them on the roof then, why is this obstinance of vanity?

Each cave is an organ of the nature, each has a unique function; one shouldn’t treat them as if they are all the same.

“All of us have a part from Her, an extra part of Her”, “find it” said to me, you have time as much as you want.

I needed to come here to comprehend the fact that the duration itself is the answer.

To come here to these caves, these pagodas, these convoluted roads, to these uphills and downhills.

There is actually no answer, nor there is a question. There is no her, there is no me, on these million years of time intervals.

Between the pagodas and the caves,

There is a hill where we can stare at our life.

From a distance, like we are someone else,

With a great depth, like we were never born.

Ulaş Başar Gezgin,

23.08.2014, Marble Mountain, Quang Nam, Vietnam

28.08.2014, Cua Dai Street, Hoi An, Vietnam

Translated by: Ali Rıza Arıcan, 20.11.2016, Changzhou, China

Gezgin, U.B. (2017). Yağmur Sonrası/ After Rain / После дождя / Diğer Dillerdeki Gezgin Şiirleri: Rusça, İngilizce, Tayca, Azerbaycanca, Vietnamca, İspanyolca ve Japonca [Gezgin’s Poetry in Other Languages: Russian, English, Thai, Azerbaijani, Vietnamese, Spanish and Japanese].

POETRY BOOKS IN ENGLISH AND OTHER LANGUAGES / İNGİLİZCE VE DİĞER DİLLERDE ŞİİR KİTAPLARI 1. Gezgin, U.B. (2017). Yağmur Sonrası/ After Rain / После дождя / Diğer Dillerdeki Gezgin Şiirleri: Rusça, İngilizce, Tayca, Azerbaycanca, Vietnamca, İspanyolca ve Japonca [Gezgin’s Poetry in Other Languages: Russian, English, Thai, Azerbaijani, Vietnamese, Spanish and Japanese]. 2. Gezgin, U.B. (2017). You, I and Our Son - Poems of Peace, Longing and Love from Vietnam 3. Gezgin, U.B. (2017). For Those Who Will Sail Across The Oceans: An Explorer’s Vietnam Poems. 4. Gezgin, U. B. (2007). On a Tablet – English Poems by Ulas Basar Gezgin. Lulu.