Some Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison by Nazim Hikmet

Some Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison

If instead of being hanged by the neck

            you’re thrown inside

            for not giving up hope

in the world, your country, and people,

            if you do ten or fifteen years

            apart from the time you have left,

you won’t say,

                        “Better I had swung from the end of a rope

                                                                        like a flag”—

you’ll put your foot down and live.

It may not be a pleasure exactly,

but it’s your solemn duty

            to live one more day

                                    to spite the enemy.

Part of you may live alone inside,

                        like a stone at the bottom of a well.

But the other part

            must be so caught up

            in the flurry of the world

              that you shiver there inside

      when outside, at forty days’ distance, a leaf moves.

To wait for letters inside,

to sing sad songs,

or to lie awake all night staring at the ceiling

                               is sweet but dangerous.

Look at your face from shave to shave,

forget your age,

watch out for lice

                        and for spring nights,

        and always remember

               to eat every last piece of bread—

also, don’t forget to laugh heartily.

And who knows,

the woman you love may stop loving you.

Don’t say it’s no big thing:

it’s like the snapping of a green branch

                                              to the man inside.

To think of roses and gardens inside is bad,

to think of seas and mountains is good.

Read and write without rest,

and I also advise weaving

and making mirrors.

I mean, it’s not that you can’t pass

         ten or fifteen years inside

                                        and more—

                you can,

                as long as the jewel

                on the left side of your chest doesn’t lose its luster!

(Tanslated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk)