Roni Margulies Poems

"Rot", says my dictionary, means "muddy".
"A" means water, this I found surprising. "Rotta",
then, is "muddy water", and "Dam" is obvious.
Rotterdam is a dam, therefore, on muddy waters.
...

The Maas is the oldest river in the world.
It has flowed now for about a million years.
I never knew, they can apparently tell
the age of rivers, like that of men.
...

Nearly as many years ago as my age,
the Germans razed this city to the ground.
Not that there'd have been much resistence,
but the Nazis were in something of a rush.
...

Our lift talks to me, as I go up
or down, in a gentle, protective tone.
"We are here," she says "you may go".
She tells me the floor we have reached,
...

I had a blue pullover,
a cross between turquoise and sky blue.
It was my favourite, the one I wore most often.
We went through a lot together, it and I,
...

I walk down the Dordtselaan almost every day
to buy bread and cigarettes at Albert Heijn's,
and malodorous French cheese, dark
Belgian beers and cold pork products.
...

Just this side of the Erasmus Bridge,
in the middle of the bustling city,
among all the concrete and the glass,
among the steel and the building sites,
...

While I was in Rotterdam
another of my years here on earth came to an end,
and I started on those of the next.
...

The great white boat at the end of the harbour,
the boat which like a second and lesser sun
reflects the first light of day every morning,
the boat I have dreamt will one day take me away,
...

Öğrendim ki, limanın ucundaki beyaz gemi,
sabahın ilk ışıklarını yansıttığında
ikinci bir güneş gibi parlayan gemi,
biner giderim diye hayal kurduğum gemi,

karaya bağlıymış kalın zincirlerle.
Gittiği yokmuş hiçbir yere.
Miadını doldurmuş çoktan,
oyuncak olmuş çocuklarla turistlere.

Yürüyüp bu sabah yanına vardım.
Asılıyor gibime geldi halatlarına bir an,
uskurundan bir hırıltı duyuyorum sandım.
Baktım, dinledim. Yok,
hayır, yanılmışım.
Benmişim.
...