Poetry Clip: Roni Margulies

TRAVOLATORS

My first plane ride, how can I forget it.
We showed our tickets and exited the gate,
my grandad on one side, my mum on the other,
a blue bus came along, then left us
right beneath the wing. I was eleven.
Our destination was fixed, as was our return:
we were off to spend a week in İzmir.

The second time, six years later, I remember too,
heading away to university, ticket in hand,
out there a new world awaiting me.
Now to get to the plane from the waiting lounge
you had to pass through travolators.
As if playing hop scotch I skipped along.

When I looked out of the window
I saw behind me rows of travolators
each like a huge finger that was
pointing out something, it seemed.
What were they trying to say?
What was it I was expected to see?
I still wonder about that sometimes.


© Roni Margulies,
from: TK1980, Yapı Kredi Yayınları, Istanbul, 2006
translation: Saliha Paker and Mel Kenne

Poetry Clip made by BEELDRECENTIES and Poetry International Web.
Camera by Marieke van der Lippe and Arthur Bueno. Interview by Michele Hutchison.
Filmed on location at the main stage of the Rotterdamse City Theatre, during the 39th Poetry International Festival, 2008.