FIRST WORD (Poetry)

FIRST WORD

                                                            -to S.T., the mute dengbêj-

Your last word was the one that gave me to a thought,

What was the first word? First word that should be something,

That made the other one to state some other thing?

Maybe 't might concern the cave they lived for years,

Or maybe 't was an eclipse of sun so magnificient to utter a word

Maybe 't was some kind of dreadful sound we have never heard...

But I know for sure the fact that it was a single word,

Maybe of one syllable, which made the utterer scare a bit,

By the sound she herself produced indeed...

But in what way she could know, she can produce a sentence...

Then others would imitate what she did, as if it is sacred matter,

Later on she could be deified, for what she did was a wonder...

What about the first baby? Did he say 'mama', 'papa'?

By the way, did he have mom and dad?

Toys, friends he never had...

Maybe he wanted bread, if someone could understand,

But let him be the first baby, how had parents grown up?

If they did not grown up, did they accrue out of a tube?..

Did he know that he was first? He was first babe on the earth?

Before that, where he'd grown up is this earth necessarily?

If not, is there a relevance for us of this baby?..

If he does not want more milk, mother would beat him harshly,

Since they do not have any means to negotiate other than that,

But he is the first one, how would mom infer that to take less milk is bad?..

Now I have easier ones: Let's come to the third issue;

What would the mute tell us first, when she is not mute no more?

"My life without a word was so miserable, so sore"?

"I had no expression, no cure for that" he would say,

"I had -can you imagine?- impressions only",

" 'could complain by no way, even I tried slowly"..

What about the deaf one, who is not deaf -oh no more-?

When one say, do you 'hear' me, he would ask what 'it' does mean,

If he starts with a buzz, he would miss what he had been...

If he starts with a tune, this would make him satisfied...

If he starts to speak, can he grasp that he did?

If there's nothing worth hearing, it would not be a good deed...

When first man had no tongue to just speak at those days,

Guess, what he did to tell what he feels inside...

Believe or not he felt what we felt with the same height...

Too many times have passed over, since I heard you say something,

But I know another way, to show you I can not tell,

It becomes at times thunder, it becomes at times a bell...

The first man, the first baby, the mute one and the deaf one,

All used to communicate by using their eyes at all,

I reply you with my eyes, whenever you keenly call...

My eyes, your eyes substitute what we're lacking for the time.

My eyes you desperately miss, your eyes I missed desperately...

Then here it's end for words, to talk by eyes loudly...

Ulaş Başar Gezgin

10.30.2001

Gezgin, U. B. (2007). On a Tablet – English Poems by Ulas Basar Gezgin. Lulu.

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.