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.
~ Nazim Hikmet
(translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk)