Miklós Radnóti, trans. by Agnes Győrfi from Hungarian
Landscape, with change

A shower marched across the gentle forest,
cloaked the trees’ leaves in mirrors,
flashed four more times, and over heavenly,
soft peaks the thunder trundled in escape.

The landscape still fumbled with the drops
and the monk-headed hill drank in snifts;
a bird flew out of hiding
and blew its feathers with the luscious winds.

*

But despair slowly wrinkled the breast of trees;
the waters of storked landscapes furrow
with blattering, green frog-sorrow
and the bird drops to death in soured winds.

Dogprints are mourning lace,
ringlets on the thin mud,
and chains, which chimingly bind
the sniveling fears of tree, bird, and wind;

*

two policemen, escorted by their shadows,
came through feathers to plowed lands.

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