Türk-yunan Şiiri (turkish-greek Poem)

You become aware when you feel homesick

That you are brothers with the Greek;

Just look at a child of Istanbul

Listening to a Greek epic.

We've sworn at each other

In the free manner of our language.

We've drawn knife on blood

Yet a love lies hidden in us

For days of peace like these.

What if in our veins

It were the same blood that flows?

From the same air in our hearts

A crazy wind blows.

So generous like this rain

And warm like the sun.

The armfuls of goodness of spring

That surge from within.

Our hostility is like a drink

Distilled from the fruit of the climate

As harmful and as tasteful as any drink.

From this water from this taste have we sinned.

A blue magic between us

And this warm sea

And two peoples on its shores

Equals in beauty.

The golden age of the Aegean

Will revive through us

As with the fire of the future

The hearth of the past comes alive.

First a merry laughter comes to your ear

Then some Turkish with a Greek accent.

Nostalgic about the Bosporus

And you remember the Raki*.

It is when you are homesick

That you recall you are brothers with the Greek.

London 1947

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*Turkish national drink, Raki, is similar to the Greek Ouzo.