By Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

Translated by Aysel K. Basci

Open your window to the cool winds!

Look at that tree change at dawn

Watch the lightening of the horizon

Let your sleepiness glide from your eyes.

Allow the wind to play with your hair.

Don’t hide from it your silvery naked body

For it’s a different kind of spring.

Let captive lips touch and caress

Everything you have: neck, hair, breast

Since you are more beautiful than the night!

Serin rüzgârlara pencereni aç!

Karşında fecirle değişen ağaç,

Bak, seyret ağaran rengini ufkun

Mahmur gözlerinde süzülsün uykun.

Bırak saçlarınla oynasın rüzgâr.

Gümüş çıplaklığı bir başka bahar

Olan vücudunu ondan gizleme.

Ne varsa hepsini boyun, saç, meme,

Esirden dudaklar okşasın sevsin

Mademki geceden daha güzelsin!

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901-1962) was a Turkish poet and novelist, widely regarded as one of the most important representatives of modernism in Turkish literature.

Aysel K. Basci is a writer and literary translator. Her work has appeared in the Columbia Journal, Michigan Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review, Critical Read, Aster(ix) Literary Journal, Tint Journal, Bosphorus Review of Books and elsewhere.