A TRIBUTE TO ATTILA JÓZSEF
ON THE 70th ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATHNewry (Northern Ireland), Abbey Press, 2007.
Edited by Thomas Kabdebo
István Baka
God's Blade of Grass
Isten fűszála
In memoriam Attila József
I see the red tongue of the summer sunset.
it slicks the silver salt-lick of the light,
and I can feel, approaching like a limpet,
the slowly creeping parched lips of the night.
My blood must quench a mighty thirst one day!
I thought – what fool I was – that I was born
to be this cosmic thirst. Now I can say
that on his head God has a halfmoon-horn,
the seas are puddles that his hoof-prints hold;
the nights and days are following the way
he ruminates; he treads from world to world
as if they were just molehills in the hay.
I couldn't see then that the Milky Way
was gossamer afloat... But now I know:
It's dark and I, God's blade of grass, I sway
on Night's lower lip, softly to and fro.
110. p. Translated by Peter Zollman
On a Line by Attila József
Egy József Attila-sorra
The tune we sing will never change the text.
The two thousand year chant can testify:
salvation is reached through a needle's eye,
and the poor in spirit are the blessed.
You could see through the Scriptures? I suggest
it was the Maya's veil. For heavens lie
as does the earth. The moon's a boat on high,
the mesh is woven out of light and mist.
Only the hangman finds delight in pain:
the hard nails – camels through the needle's eye –
went through the hands and feet of Christ the king.
One day the words will shake off every chain,
and if the tune won't change the text, then I
predict: the text will change the tune we sing.
110-111. p Translated by Peter Zollman