By Heidi Trautmann

They have come by bus, with the poetry bus,  his wife Emine, friends and colleagues, on the day of his birthday, on 10 January; he would have been 72 years old. Very suddenly, but not unexpectedly, he had died on 28 November 2010.  Now, they have all come to Lefke, Fikret’s place of birth to celebrate the naming of a Lefke street after him. He should always be remembered as the great Cypriot Turkish poet and humanist.

I greet him from here reciting one of his beautiful poems and I would like to tell him that he is right.

TIME FOR

…So says the holy book

There is a time for sowing seeds

a time for rain and the sun,

a time for the wind and for passion,

for sorrow and exile a time,

a time for the skies

to bring the swallow’s cries,

a time for the damp smell of soil,

and to start talking to the wind

but never to be delayed is

the time for love and hope

                                Nicosia, 5. 7. 1985

 The photos in Lefke were taken by H. Kaba