Advice to Our Children
Writing about Nazim Hikmat in The Hindu Literary Review, Ravi Vyas quotes from the great Turkish poet’s “Advice to Our Children”:
Be naughty, that’s all right.
Climb up sheer walls,
Up towering trees.
Like an old captain let your hands direct
The course of your bicycle….
You must know how to build your own paradise on this black soil.
With your geology textbook
you must silence the man who teaches you
that creation began with Adam.
You must recognise
the importance of the Earth,
you must believe the Earth is eternal
Distinguish not between your mother
and your mother Earth.
You must love it
as much you love her.
Also read Hikmat’s poems “On Living” and “Things I Didn’t Know I Loved”.
