translation as a gesture of love (or remembrance)

translation as a gesture of love (or remembrance), mixed media collage by Canan Marasligil (2019)

“Listening to music is the gesture that defeats the skin by transforming it from a boundary into a connection.”

— Vilém Flusser, in Gestures (translated from German by Nancy Ann Roth)

i want to translate
all the love songs of my geographies
to you
sezen aksu and jacques brel
the newer ones too

i want to translate
the yearning to go back
places, spaces, faces
a feeling you are alien to
your life
spent in this one city
from birth on
i was defined by movement

i want to translate
the recipes my grandmother brings to life
so that you can taste
what it is like
to be loved
beyond borders
something we know too well
we, who grew up with the nostalgia
of a country we never lived in

 

(isn’t it how we never get lost
in translation)

 

i want to translate
my imagination
so it can merge into yours
so we can turn our present
into a past
that will not fade into a blur
on a forgotten photograph

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This poem was performed at the Mezrab (see video), and initially published on Das Kollektiv - kollektiv sprachwechsel.