in the late afternoon on a dull hot summer's day
sunlight glistens off the leaves of a poplar tree
swaying in the dry wind
in the distance
with each rhythmic arch and bend
wheels turn in my head
dusty winding roads
stretching out over haunting Anatolian plains
and long endless plateaus
with no end, nothing but depth
small melancholy towns
with small lives built by big dark soily hands
the little teahouses, the gaudy bus station restaurants
the lonesome gas stations
and the yellow, blue, red of the barren, unforgiving earth and sky
the ghosts of Hittites whisper from the rocks
and when you listen
you can only hear the silence of thousands of years
and you understand that long-forgotten language well
small creeks where sway towering poplars
hide away from eyes and cares
little corners in an immense world
where wind, water and leaves
compose an endless little symphony
that has a rhyme and rhythm all its own
playing only for you
a brief fleeting audience
not knowing what to do
not knowing how to hold on to this moment
how to keep it from slipping away
but it slips away of its own accord
the symphony is never heard long
and you will again ascend the machine
and let the wheels take you back and away
wondering what was left behind
wondering what was even found
back through the towns and the villages
across the winding plains and plateaus and cruel mountains
through the ruins of peoples and civilizations long gone
the melancholy, the sadness, the mystery within and around you
the time, so immense
the time you lost when you were a child
and found again here on these roads
you wonder where all the time was
where it all fled to
and when
when it was here, around you, all along
here, an immense, beautiful, embracing time
without loss and sorrow
a time that doesn't exclude, a time that doesn't arouse fear
fear of loss
fear of age
fear of death
fear of loneliness
fear of regret
fear of never being seen again
fear of never having been seen
the time here is a gently, fatherly time
a time that makes you feel you are a part of it
that you belong with it
that it has not forgotten you
it has never forgotten you
and you were always with it
you always felt like a son to it
that immense, beautiful, embracing father time
the evening is late now, the last light fades
the red flaming sun has given way to a darkening blue
shades and shadows reclaim what was theirs
the wind dies
and the poplar slowly fades from view
and with it also fades
the big country beyond all our small horizons
and that great father time
rolls slowly, gently away
and i'm by myself once more
gazing out a window
swallowed again and again by the city
i hear the clock tick ominously above
every passing second
echoes around me
