Dead

• Whichever neighborhood has no clergyman
• I shall die there.
• Let no one see how beautiful
• Are all the things I have, my feet, my hair.

• In the name of the dead, free and immaculate,
• A fish in unknown seas,
• Am I not a Muslim, heaven knows,
• Yet no crowds for me, please.

• Don’t let them make me wear a shroud,
• In sky safeguard my darkness from misery,
• Don’t shake me as I go from shoulder to shoulder,
• For all my parts are fancy free.

• No prayer can turn my remoteness
• From the other worlds into a reality.
• Don’t let them wash my body, don’t:
• I am madly in love with the warmth inside me.

— by Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca (trans. Talat Sait Halman)

Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca (1914–2008) was a prolific and celebrated Turkish poet with more than 60 collections of verse to his name. His insistence on a purist approach to the Turkish language brought a sense of renewal to Turkish literature and focused on philosophical, theological, and political themes. As a testament to his popularity and despite his request in “Dead,” his funeral was not held in private — but became a public affair of state. The wake and funeral ceremony were held in an opera house in Istanbul, attended by a crowd of Turkish politicians and military officers as well as family and Turkey’s literati.

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