09 Jan Istanbul Meditation

mezzo-soprano & piano [5’]; words Yeshim Ternar; 2023.

Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke
Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023.

From The Book and the Veil: Escape from an Istanbul Harem, by Yeshim Ternar (Montréal: Véhicule Press, 1994)

VII.

Now, I, Yeshim, who’s fled every office chaise,

From East to West, have sauntered East many times:

A Turkish-born writer, Montréalaise,

I hear, in Mont-Royal, Istanbul’s chimes,

And recall instantly that Turks love the buttercup,

Narcissus, dandelions, and camomile

All sprouting wildly in Istanbul, all non-stop,

All along the Bosphorus, whose waters rile

Houses lizarding hazardous banks, so mad floods

Wash out foundations.  But the fixed standard

Of Beauty in Istanbul is unpredictable moods:

Of water, of women.  And so Love meanders….

I think of Zeyneb, her eyes sleepy but not dull.

She tells of opium pills that helped mothers

And wives pull through Ramadan, treat it as a lull,

Swallowing drugs sold in thin-gold covers;

Hallowing pills with varying thicknesses 

Of gold coating, so that ladies could float above

All cares for husbands, lovers, businesses,

And even look down upon—frown upon—Love.