Translation Review - The University of Texas at Dallas

The Swordfi sh (Kılıç Balıgı) ˘
Ece Temelkuran
translated by Saliha Paker and Mel Kenne
How could I have known what would happen to me
out there in the sea?
A swordfi sh appeared suddenly. Before I knew it,
a swordfi sh had split me in two. Slit me
with its sword, straight down
my left side.
Plunged that sharpest of blades in my back,
ripped out a bone
with its teeth. Tossed it in a tangle of seaweed.
Into the cavity left there, slipped a bit of silver
it had hid in its mouth.
The wound is in my midriff.
It will never heal.
The seaʼs keenest edge, the sword,
will leave its mark in my spine.
Timeʼs bitter salt…
The swordfi sh stain in my waist.
Nothing is as it was
now that silver has entered my spine.
For in the silver wisdom is hidden,
like the argentine wisdom every wound holds.
Before leaving, of course,
the swordfi sh told me the secret of its silver.
In you I have grafted silverʼs wisdom.
Now thereʼs white metal within your bones.
Into your fl esh humanity secretes
the stored-up testimony of its whole history.
You will understand all things.
You will hear those who speak and those who donʼt.
You are now as poor and as wise as silver.
From now on, you hold a grief inside you
much more than your face will ever show.
I could have inserted bronze in you instead.
So nothing could make you bend or bow down.
But then you wouldnʼt understand those who did.
I had gold in my mouth, too.
I could have stuck that gram of gold in your body.
Todayʼs world would have deemed you worthy,
but you wouldnʼt have known worthlessness.
The applause of the present wouldʼve swept you away.
You might not have scorned diamond either.
But then you would have scratched each thing you touched.
You wouldnʼt have known how it feels to be cut, that aching.
There might now be iron in your backbone.
You could have been given greater strength.
But held up by your iron frame,
you wouldnʼt be able to speak of the oppressed.
What if I had mixed some steel in your spineʼs fusion?
With steelʼs history of conquest and spoliation
you couldʼve been even more captivating.
But then you couldnʼt have said a thing
about the history of those held captive.
Within you I have placed the most abject
and also the darling of all metals.
With it, you have a chance to become no body.
For silver fi nally tarnishes down to nothing.
Even when it shines the most brightly it knows
what it means to be earth and dust.
Only nothing can speak in everythingʼs tongue.
Only no one can speak from everyoneʼs heart.
Silver-spined one! Itʼs to speak that youʼve come.
Other than what you are here to say,
your fl esh, your hands, your knick-knack collection,
everything you do, is only a strut.
For you do have things to say.
So much that—no matter how grievous it may seem—youʼre
no more than what youʼve got to say.
Silver-spined one!
Into this world you have come
and from it you will go
strangely.
in Kiyi Kitabi (The Book of the Edge); Everest, Istanbul, 2002.
Translation Review 73