ramazan night

It's the middle of the night; and sleep won't come, and once again I am turning to poems--almost half the weight of the books in my suitcase (the others: dictionary, maps, two scant novels, Rodriguez's essays) and I am glad, at these moments, that parsimony gave way to poetry. There's music too: Ramazan drums out in the darkness. Ramadan during the daytime is thus far notable for its absences; in Beyoğlu very little changes; few people seem to be fasting and food stalls and shops are still open. But in the night, and especially in the hours just before dawn, the drummers are sovereign, and company for the insomniac as well as the pious.

Tonight, Hikmet first, and then Agha Shahid Ali.

--from "Things I Didn't Know I Loved":

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.....

Nazim Hikmet, 1962

from "The City of Daughters":

And cold, the rains
come down. Now who will save Noah? The Ark

is set aflame, launched. And God? Here,
again, is why I believe in Him: He put
his lips to my ear and said Nothing. Share,
then, my heart--anyone! Say farewell, cut

my heart loose, row its boat without me--
for I am leaving the world forever.
Say farewell, say farewell to the city
(O Sarajevo! O Srinagar!)

the Alexandria that is forever leaving.

Agha Shahid Ali, 1990.