Miklós Radnóti, 'Frothy Sky'

[duathir]

Frothy Sky

The moon sways on a frothy sky,
being alive, I'm surprised.
Death is busily searching our time
and those he finds are all so white.

The year looks around and cries out,
it looks around and it feels faint.
What kind of autumn lurks behind me
and how numb the winter is from pain!

The forest bled and in the spinning time
every hour was bleeding also.
The wind was scribbling big
dark numbers in the snow.

I understand this and that one too,
the air is heavy around me,
lukewarm silence filled with noises,
as in the womb, surrounds me.

I stop here under the tree
while its crown rumbles in anger,
a branch reaches down. It grabs my neck?
I am not coward, nor am I slender,

just tired. I am quiet. So is the branch
as it tousles my hair, full of dread.
It would be time to forget but
I was never able to forget.

Froth gushes on the moon in the sky
a streak of green poison takes a dive.
I roll a cigarette for myself,
slowly, carefully. I am alive.

By Miklós Radnóti
translated by Miklós Nádasdi

Miklos Radnoti killed, November 9, 1944