“I’ve learned some things from having lived:
If you’re alive, experience one thing with all your power
Your beloved should be worn out from being kissed
And you should drop exhausted from the smelling a flower

A person can gaze at the sky for hours
Can gaze for hours at a bird, a child, the sea
To live on the earth is to become part of it
To strike down roots that won’t pull free

If you cling to anything, tightly hold a friend
Fight for something with every muscle, whole body, all your passion
And if you lay yourself for a time on the warm beach
You should let yourself rest like a grain of sand,
Let yourself rest like a grain of sand, a leaf, a stone

To your utmost, listen to every beautiful song
As though filling all the self with sound and melody

One should plunge headfirst into life
As one dives from a cliff into the emerald sea

Distant lands should draw you, people you don’t know
To read every book,  know others’ lives, you should be burning
You shouldn’t exchange with anything
Exchange nothing for a glass of water’s joy
No matter how much the pleasure, fill your life with yearning

You should know sorrow, honorably, with all your being
Because, the pains, like joys,  make a person grow
Your blood should mingle in the great circulation of life
And in your veins, life’s endless fresh blood should flow

I’ve learned some things from having lived:
If you’re alive, you should live with might,
As though you are merging into the rivers,
Into the universe
For, what we call a human life is a gift given to life
And life is a gift bestowed upon us”

Ataol Behramoğlu