Things I Didn't Know I Loved
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 bird
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
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 this has been said a thousand times before
and will be said after me
by Nazim Hikmet