ON THE 70th ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH
Newry (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