It's This Way
I stand in the advancing light,
my hands hungry, the world beautiful.
My eyes can't get enough of the trees—
they're so hopeful, so green.
A sunny road runs through the mulberries,
I'm at the window of the prison infirmary.
I can't smell the medicines—
carnations must be blooming nearby.
It's this way:
being captured is beside the point,
the point is not to surrender.
Notes
Hikmet refutes the heavy paralysis of existential dread, asserting that even while the world fractures around us, the act of living must remain a bright and stubborn celebration. It captures a radical, unburdened lightness that does not ignore suffering, but deliberately chooses the vitality of a passing bird or a child's laughter as its sanctuary. By transforming the fleeting nature of life into a reason for joyful persistence, the poem demonstrates that the ultimate refusal to be weighed down is simply to love the world exactly as it passes. #poetry #romantic #turkish #revolution #lightness