The Shoot
Birch and its lakeside reflection: a playing card.
God and Satan are playing on the table
of the autumn scene – God loses and pays:
a staggering stag, a hare hit hard.
The shooting party arrives, even their eyes
are gun-muzzles; the map of Europe spreads
on a blood-sodden bag: bloodstain towns open
their mouths – bone-whitened trenches materialize.
Along the lakeshore dead fish disintegrate,
they lie there like gouged out eyes – the waters have gone blind,
the hunters arrive, the horizon, a fish's mouth, shuts close,
on the cross-hair of compass points the game stop and wait.
Translated by Peter Zollman
From 'Selected Poems' by István Baka