The Art of Marxism: poetry

The Faces of Our Women

by Nāzım Hikmet Ran


Mary didn't give birth to God.
Mary isn't the mother of God.
Mary is one mother among many mothers.
Mary gave birth to a son,
a son among many sons.
That's why Mary is so beautiful in all the pictures of her.
That's why Mary's son is so close to us, like our own sons.

The faces of our women are the book of our pains.
Our pains, our faults and the blood we shed
carve scars on the faces of our women like plows.

like the dawns glowing on the lakes.

Our imaginations are on the faces of women we love.
Whether we see them or not, they are before us,

closest to our realities and furthest.