Smoke On The Mountain Top / (Bekir Sıtkı ERDOĞAN)

It was a foggy November morning:
The many and the few took to the roads ...
There was smoke on the mountain top, my brother,
Day will never break, they said.
I looked, and saw the sky was empty,
Dark mourning enfolded the nation,
Every breast was full of mourning,
It plumed out of the chimneys.
I looked on a foggy November day,
A huge orphaned land
Wept and beat its breast.
Where did that edict come from, where?
There is smoke on the mountain top, my brother.
A black hand suddenly came in through the window
And turned the pages of history ...
Gallipoli was thick with smoke and dust!
Samsun, Erzurum, Sivas
Sped past the nation,
Men held their breath and were amazed.
My hands, feet and head grew!
A sorrowful tune along the Sakarya,
My Mustafa points to the Mediterranean!
The carts carried faith, not bullets.
‘There is smoke on the mountain top,’ my brother.
‘The Gümüşdere keeps flowıng,
’A woe that eats away at us on November mornings,
A woe that burns!
The nation entered a new period of rejoicing,
Everywhere was happy and free.
All the Turkish nation held a ceremony.
All the nation was marching,
Ataturk at its head,
The nation was going through a revolution,
Striding the mountains night and day.
Was it the ebb or flow? Nobody knows,
One watched the far horizon,
One drew closer.
‘The Lord sent Ataturk to the world
To give the world a new miracle.
’That is what my one-armed grandfather used to say.
Mothers and fathers saw those dark days.
‘Allah sent Ataturk to us,
He has smiled upon us,’ they said.
Yet one day,
On a foggy November morning
There was smoke on the mountain top, my brother.
‘The day will never break,’ they said.
I looked, and saw the sky was empty.
Dark mourning enfolded the nation,
It plumed out of the chimneys.

 ..........................................................

I looked on a foggy November morning
He still beat in our pulse,
He was still alive.
That pain in my heart hurt no less.
A few frozen memories remained In my orphaned eyes. There is smoke on the mountain top, my brother.
Smoke on the mountain top.

 Bekir Sıtkı ERDOĞAN