FOR YOU

For you, my fellow humans,

Everything is for you,

Nights are for you, days are for you;

Daylight is for you, moonlight is for you;

Leaves in the moonlight;

Wonder and wisdom in the leaves,

Myriad greens in daylight,

Yellow is for you, and pink.

The feel of the skin on the palm,

Its warmth,

Its softness,

The comfort of lying down;

For you are all the greetings

And the masts winnowing in the harbor;

Names of the days,

Names of the months,

Fresh paint on rowboats is for you,

Mailman's feet,

Potter's hands

Sweat on foreheads,

Bullets fired on battlefronts;

Graves are for you and tombstones,

Jails and handcuffs and death sentences

Are for you.

Everything is for you.

---Orhan Veli Kanik