Meditações - the clocks stood still

That autumn was abundant

In Istanbul the ancient and platinum

Women with their faces covered and discovered

 

My grandfather arrived on foot to this Ottoman city

 

From the desolate Sebastopol and from other burned villages,

From the bloody snow.

 

He spoke about its minarets

Certainly he loved the fields of leaves. Autumn, like a river or

    a glowing bonfire

And I don't know where he went to pray,

Or perhaps he no longer did so in the city of the sultans

 

But I know in his mouth he carried a needle

Noble metaphor of his trade.

 

Perhaps he wandered astonished throughout lovely Istanbul

Searching for sustenance or clients

Perhaps inclined, he entered one of the thousand mosques

Where he prayed

While the clocks stood still,

Geographies were erased.

Because the city was merely a golden breeze falling upon the

     leaves

 

A multitude of lights upon the holy minarets,

My grandfather,

 

A Jewish tailor also took refuge in Istanbul

Also another small Jewish city

Among the thresholds of history.

That autumn was abundant

Marjorie Agosín