Attila
Jozsef
Wom Out
(Megfaradt ember, 1923)
Over the fields somber peasants
start homewards, silently.
We lie side by side: the river and
I.
Delicate grasses sleep under my heart.
Calm rolls in on the river's back.
My worries dissolve into mist;
lying here, I am not man or child
or brother or Magyar - just worn out.
Evening ladles out peace.
I am a slice of its warm bread.
The sky, too, rests; the stars settle down
on the quiet river and on my forehead.
Everything
Is
Old
(Greg Minden, 1928)
Everything's old here. The senile storm,
propped on crooked lightningbolts,
hisses at thornwhiskered roses
and hobbles along on bad feet.
Everything's old. The revolution
squats, coughing on scarred stones
that scatter, and in his bony hand
a penny shines: my loveliest song.
Why isn't my hand transparent-old,
so that, touching my wrinkled face,
it drops into my lap? See it
and believe: tears trill from my eyes.
Oh, my youth! My age of altars!
Like shivering wide-eyed fish, this
flame trembles in sunset's net
and my deathdust turns to duckweed.
Translated from the Hungarian by Daphne Kalotay
