[좋은가을영시 40]Things I Didn't Know I Loved by Nazim Hikmet

가을을 맞이한지 얼마되지 않았는데

벌써 첫 눈이 내리면서 벌써 떠날 준비를 한다.

 

짧은 가을동안

봄부터 사 모은 시집들의 시를 다시 찬찬히 읽으면서

10대 소녀처럼 촉촉한 멜랑콜리 분위기에 젖어본다.

 

오래 전에 구입한 나짐 히크메트 시인의 시집을 책꽂이에서 꺼내들고

이 아름다운 가을에 다시 음미해보니

예전에 무심코 지나쳤던 구절들이 새롭게 맘에 와 닿는 구절이 많다.

 

2008년 10월 오후에 집 뒤의 작은 호수에서 남쪽으로 먼 여행을 떠나는 캐나다 기스(Canada Geese)

 

 

 

Things I Didn't Know I Loved

        by Nazim Hikmet

 

 

It's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird

 

83rd ave, Edmonton, Oct 2010

 

 

I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love

 

 

 

83rd Ave, Edmonton, Oct 2010

 

 

and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus
or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see
I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before
and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before
and will be said after me

 

 

 

Prince Edward Island, July, 2012

 

 

 

I didn't know I loved the sky
cloudy or clear
the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino
in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish
I hear voices
not from the blue vault but from the yard
the guards are beating someone again

 I didn't know I loved trees
bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino
they come upon me in winter noble and modest
beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish
"the poplars of Izmir
losing their leaves. . .
they call me The Knife. . .
lover like a young tree. . .
I blow stately mansions sky-high"
in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief
to a pine bough for luck

 

 

PEI, July 2012

 

 

 

I never knew I loved roads
even the asphalt kind
Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea
Koktebele
formerly "Goktep챕 ili" in Turkish
the two of us inside a closed box
the world flows past on both sides distant and mute
I was never so close to anyone in my life
bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Gerede
when I was eighteen
apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon they could take
and at eighteen our lives are what we value least
I've written this somewhere before
wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the shadow play
Ramazan night
a paper lantern leading the way
maybe nothing like this ever happened
maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy
going to the shadow play
Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather's hand
his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat
with a sable collar over his robe
and there's a lantern in the servant's hand
and I can't contain myself for joy
flowers come to mind for some reason
poppies cactuses jonquils
in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika
fresh almonds on her breath
I was seventeen
my heart on a swing touched the sky
I didn't know I loved flowers
friends sent me three red carnations in prison

 

 

Saskatchewan River Trail, Oct 2011

 

 

I just remembered the stars
I love them too
whether I'm floored watching them from below
or whether I'm flying at their side

 

 

집 뒤의 작은 호수 in Oct, 2008

 

I have some questions for the cosmonauts
were the stars much bigger
did they look like huge jewels on black velvet
or apricots on orange
did you feel proud to get closer to the stars
I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't
be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract
well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to
say they were terribly figurative and concrete
my heart was in my mouth looking at them
they are our endless desire to grasp things
seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad
I never knew I loved the cosmos

 Canola field in Sept, 2011

 

 

snow flashes in front of my eyes
both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind
I didn't know I liked snow

 

 

Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

 

I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors
but you aren't about to paint it that way
I didn't know I loved the sea
except the Sea of Azov
or how much

 

Mill Creek Ravine Park, Edmonton, Sept 2012

 

 

I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois
strikes me
I like it

 

 

Muttart Garden, Edmonton, Oct 2012

 

 

I didn't know I liked rain
whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my
heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop
and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved
rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting
by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
is it because I lit my sixth cigarette
one alone could kill me
is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow
her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue

 

 

Muttart Garden, Edmonton, Oct 2012

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night
I never knew I liked the night pitch-black
sparks fly from the engine
I didn't know I loved sparks
I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty
to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return

19 April 1962
Moscow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nazim Hikmet

나짐 히크메트는 1902년에 당시 오토만 제국에 있는 살로니카

(현재는 그리이스의 테살로니카)에서

외교관인 아버지와 미술가인 어머니 사이에서 태어났고,

시인이신 할아버지 덕분에 일찍부터 시를 접하게 되어서

그가 17세에 이미 그의 시들을 출판도 했다.

터키의 이스탄불에서 성장하다가 일차 세계 대전후에 연합군이 주둔하자

그는 러시아의 모스코바로 가서 대학을 졸업했고,

1924년에 터키가 독립을 하자 다시 터키로 돌아 왔는데

좌익계 출판활동을 하다가 좌파로 몰려서 체포를 당한 후에

다시 모스코바로 도주를 한 후에도 계속 시와 희곡 작품을 썼다.

 

1928년에 사면이 되어서 다시 터키로 돌아온 히크메트는 10년간 저널리스트와 번역일을 하면서도

계속 시작을 해서 9개의 시집을 출판했다.

그는 1951년에 좌익활동 때문에 오랜 감옥생활을 청산하고 마지막으로 터키를 떠나서 소련과 동유럽 국가에 거주하면서

공산주의 사상에 부합되는 활동을 계속했다.

대부분의 그의 시들은 영어로 번역이 되어서 많은 사람들에게 알려졌는데

특히 Human Landscapes from My Country: An Epic Novel in Verse (2009),

Things I Didn't Know I Loved (1975),

The Day Before Tomorrow (1972),

The Moscow Symphony (1970), and Selected Poems (1967).

Seyh Bedreddin destani ("The Epic of Shaykh Bedreddin") and

Memleketimden insan manzaralari ("Portraits of People from My Land").가 그의 대표작으로 꼽힌다.

 

히크메트는 1963년에 모스코바에서 심장마비로 세상을 떠났지만

그는 터키가 배출한 첫 현대시인이자, 20세기에 가장 국제적으로 잘 알려진 시인으로

터키인들에게 추앙을 받는 시인으로 남아있다.

 

 

 

 

music: dobbin's flowery vale

sung by rajaton

from helen's cd bin