Some thoughts from Turkey

A couple of springs ago, my ds, Ben, traveled to Turkey. He spent 3 weeks or so traveling the length and breadth of its wonders, and it all resulted in some interesting and beautiful pictures and poetry. I thought it would be fun to post some here. Enjoy!










Anzac Cove, Gallipoli

Here,
beneath the mud
and soggy turf and
in the spring
flowers between the stones--
here rest
two hundred and fifty men
and boys
(Private, seventeen
dedicated by his beloved mother
the Lord hath given
the Lord hath taken away)
two hundred and fifty
laid down to rest,
bloodied after a short run
up a hostile hill
that did nothing for them
or for their purpose, in the end.
(Trooper, twenty-one
glad to live
gladly died, nobly
for a noble cause)
Two hundred and fifty,
a mere fraction of
the shattered sweethearts
and mourning mothers
(This Muslim soldier
lies here in honor,
facing souteast,
sideways to the rest)
the rest are elsewhere.
Here, though,
they sleep in the bosom of a now-friendly
land, covered over with
its mud and in the spring
its drooping flowers.

Monuments

1. Hattushas Dreams

Stone;
a memory in
and of
stone. Here
there is a king
strutting costumed,
attended, among the many
accustomed gods. Here
soldiers with crooked
swords,
pointed hats; stone
a memory of stone.
A mournfully worn
lion guards a long-
dry fountain.
The mountain has long
overgrown and eroded
the fortress
(well-positioned, long-
held by the king's
fathers) and
the straight walls
in disarray--
a jumble of overthrown stone.
The king and his soldiers:
the dry lion stares with shallow
eyes on their ruin
and remembers.

2. Antiochus Crumbling

The sun is high,
casting short shadows
from tall stone columns, topped
with crumbling eagles,
the helpless, ineffectual
watchers over the grave
of the wife of the king.
The heads of the gods
are broken, set
in a row before the feet
of the shattered king
on the broken head of Nemrut,
Tons of broken rock
have protected his corpse
better that curse or eagle
or lion, tons of rock
slowly shifting downward
to bury and crush the gods.
The sun sets slowly,
blood-red rays
painting the un-bodified profile
of the proud ruler, the human god
whose death the mountain pictures,
the sun setting over
the broken temple of
a god turned to dust.

3. Underground City

Stifled ancient whispers
held with the smoke-residue
in the soft rock
softly sigh half-memories.
Dark, dusty storerooms
(empty now)
seem still to wait
for the time of trouble,
when once again
the fathers bring their
wives and prayers and children
into the cool safe of the dark.
Fifteen hundred years and
carved low halls
slowly crack underground.
On both hands
dark empty passages
stare dimly,
dimly whisper sighs
of dull un-echoed footfalls
and prayers for safety
made in the dark.
The liturgy of time
had worn the cross
from the domed recess
behind the crumbling
altar, but the imagination of scholars
has carved a new one.