Aziz Isa Elkun

Aziz İsa Elkün
translated by Sultankiz

Seher yıldızı tebessüm içinde gülümsediğinde,
Baharım ellili yaşımda çiçek açtığında,
Aşka bu ömür hiç doymayıp geçtiğinde,
Dünya kuluna güzelmiş, aslında güzel imiş.

Olmasa âşık, bülbül çiçek dalına konmaz,
Olmasa delikanlı olgun, vuslat imkânına ulaşamaz,
Eğer olsa er, sözünden asla dönmez,
Emeğiyle doğru insan menziline ulaşır imiş!

Yıldızım meşale gibi gecenin parlağı,
Dolunay ise gölge yoldaşım oldu,
Gülüp çıkar hem güneşimin sevgi-ateşi
Gem vurmazsan ömrün böyle geçer imiş!

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Aziz Isa Elkun

When the morning star smiled with happiness,
When my spring bloomed from my fifties,
When this life passes and love is never enough,
The world is beautiful to us, truly beautiful!

If not a lover, the nightingale won’t alight on the flowering branch,
Until a young man grows, he won’t achieve his desires,
If he is a man, he will never break his promise.
A man must struggle hard to reach his destination.

My star shines like a torch in the dark night,
The full moon has become my companion shadow
When will my Sun come out with fiery warmth,
Your life will pass by if you don’t grasp it.

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By Matt Rivers, CNN January 3, 2020

Beijing (CNN) – Uyghur poet Aziz Isa Elkun fled China’s far western Xinjiang region more than 20 years ago.He’s not welcome in the country. He can’t even phone his mother. She said it was better if he didn’t, because every time he did, police would show up at her door. So, when Elkun’s father died in 2017, there was no way he could go back to China for the burial. To be closer to his family, he would view his father’s grave on Google Earth.”I know exactly where his tomb is,” Elkun told CNN in his north London home. “When I was a kid we would go there, pray at the mosque, visit our relatives. The entire community was connected to that graveyard.”He “visited” his father like this for nearly two years. But in June, something changed. The satellite photo on Google had been updated and the graveyard that used to be there was now nothing more than a flattened, empty field.”I had no idea what happened,” said Elkun. “I was completely in shock.”

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