Yeni Cami (New Mosque)

flowers : Remember a sadder day

red flowers, istanbul, pentax k10d

Mother And Child Reunion

No I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away, oh, little darling of mine.
I can’t for the life of me
Remember a sadder day
I know they say let it be
But it just don’t work out that way
And the course of a lifetime runs
Over and over again

No I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away, oh, little darling of mine.

I just can’t believe it’s so,
and though it seems strange to say
I never been laid so low
In such a mysterious way
And the course of a lifetime runs
Over and over again

But I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
When the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away,
Oh, oh the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away
Oh the mother and child reunion
Is only a moment away

Paul Simon

taken by Pentax K10D, at Istanbul

black tulips

black tulips from Istanbul Tulip Festival with Pentax K10D

taken by Pentax K10D, at Istanbul

flowers

blue flower, istanbul , pentax k10d

taken by Pentax K10D, at Istanbul

tulips : about living

yellow tulips, istanbul tulip festival, istanbul, pentax k10d

In Istanbul, you can see Tulips only for one or two weeks in April.

About Living

I

Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example-
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously,
so much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
your back to the wall,
or else in a laboratory
in your white coat and safety glasses,
you can die for people-
even for people whose faces you’ve never seen,
even though you know living
is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees-
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

II

Let’s say you’re seriously ill, need surgery –
which is to say we might not get
from the white table.
Even though it’s impossible not to feel sad
about going a little too soon,
we’ll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we’ll look out the window to see it’s raining,
or still wait anxiously
for the latest newscast …
Let’s say we’re at the front-
for something worth fighting for, say.
There, in the first offensive, on that very day,
we might fall on our face, dead.
We’ll know this with a curious anger,
but we’ll still worry ourselves to death
about the outcome of the war, which could last years.
Let’s say we’re in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
before the iron doors will open.
We’ll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind-
I mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
we must live as if we will never die.

III

This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet-
I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space …
You must grieve for this right now
-you have to feel this sorrow now-
for the world must be loved this much
if you’re going to say “I lived” …

Nazim Hikmet
February, 1948

taken by Pentax K10D, at Istanbul

tulips : I Can’t Run But

white tulip, istanbul tulip festival, istanbul, pentax k10d

I Can’t Run But

I can’t run but
I can walk much faster than this
Can’t run but
I can’t run but
I can walk much faster than this
Can’t run but

A cooling system
Burns out in the Ukraine
Trees and umbrellas
Protect us from the new rain
Armies of engineers
To analyze the soil
The food we contemplate
The water that we boil

I can’t run but
I can walk much faster than this
Can’t run but
I can’t run but
I can walk much faster than this
Can’t run but
Oo-we Oo-we

I had a dream about us
In the bottles and the bones of the night
I felt a pain in my shoulder blade
Like a pencil point? A love bite?
A couple was rubbing against us
Rubbing and doing that new dance
The man was wearing a jacket and jeans
The woman was laughing in advance

I can’t run but
I can walk much faster than this
Can’t run but
I can’t run but
I can walk much faster than this
Can’t run but

A winding river
Gets wound around a heart. Pull it
Tighter and tighter
Until the muddy waters part
Down by the river bank
A blues band arrives
The music suffers
The music business thrives

I can’t run but
I can walk much faster than this
Can’t run but
I can’t run but
I can walk much faster than this
Can’t run but
Oo-we Oo-we

Paul Simon

taken by Pentax K10D, at Istanbul

tulips, red tulips

red tulips, istanbul tulip festival, istanbul, pentax k10d

Last night you left me and slept
your own deep sleep. Tonight you turn
and turn. I say,
“You and I will be together
till the universe dissolves.”
You mumble back things you thought of
when you were drunk.
Mevlana

Like This, Rumi, Coleman Barks, Maypop Books

Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small and tulips

purple tulips, istanbul tulip festival, istanbul, pentax k10d

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

81

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And ev’n with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken’d-Man’s forgiveness give-and take!

82

As under cover of departing Day
Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazan away,
Once more within the Potter’s house alone
I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay.

83

Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small,
That stood along the floor and by the wall;
And some loquacious Vessels were; and some
Listen’d perhaps, but never talk’d at all.

84

Said one among them-“Surely not in vain
“My substance of the common Earth was ta’en
“And to this Figure moulded, to be broke,
“Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again.”

85

Then said a Second-“Ne’er a peevish Boy
“Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy;
“And He that with his hand the Vessel made
“Will surely not in after Wrath destroy.”

86

After a momentary silence spake
Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make;
“They sneer at me for leaning all awry:
“What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?”

87

Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot-
I think a Sufi pipkin-waxing hot-
“All this of Pot and Potter-Tell me, then,
“Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?”

88

“Why,” said another, “Some there are who tell
“Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
“The luckless Pots he marr’d in making-Pish!
“He’s a Good Fellow, and ‘t will all be well.”

Omer Hayyam

by Edward FitzGerald

taken by Pentax K10D, at Istanbul

yellow flowers

yellow flowers, istanbul, pentax k10d

tulip, What are You? What am I?

yellow tulips, istanbul tulip festival, pentax k10d

Ask those who know…

Ask those who know,
what’s this soul within the flesh?
Reality’s own power.
What blood fills these veins?

Thought is an errand boy,
fear a mine of worries.
These sighs are love’s clothing.
Who is the Khan on the throne?

Give thanks for His unity.
He created when nothing existed.
And since we are actually nothing,
what are possessions, houses, shops?

God sent us here
to come and see the world.
This world itself is not everlasting.
What are all of Solomon’s riches?

Ask Yunus and Taptuk
what the world means to them.
The world won’t last.
What are You? What am I?

Yunus Emre