Poem -- Age 55

Age 55
by
Jahit Sitkuh Taranjuh
translated from the Turkish by
Victor Ulsoy and Joel Levitt


55, still alive, the better part behind,
The flaccid body circles-five the sullen brain,
Youth's vigor just a haze upon the cooling mind.
I can't compel, convince or bribe the present moment to remain.
It presses me along the endless corridors of time.

*****

My former friend, the mirror, now focus of my fears,
Reflecting greying temples, sunken eyes and visage lined.
How people change, how ravaged with the passing of the years!
Even photos of my smiling past now laugh with mocking tones, unkind.
I am not me. I am just he who celebrates the now with tears.

*****

Where then the consolation of family and of friends?
Love's passion, grown old, has turned to duty and to drear.
My infant intimates have all pursued divergent ends.
Our issue issues forth to seek their joyful peers.
Each lonely day more loneliness portends,


*****
I did not know. I did not know, and now I know too late.
There must be time to cherish, for there's none to make amends.
There must be time to know men's hearts before they meet their fate.
The young may dance and sing and kiss and savor all luck sends.
At 55, then they will know - too late, too late, too late.