Poetry

Late October Hexameters

Miklos Radnoti, translated by John Ridland and Paul V. Czipott

Late October Hexameters                                            
After Miklós Radnóti, “Októbervegi Hexameterek”

In its dancer’s channel the white-laughing creek sprints down off the mountain,
the autumn leaf dances and, smoothing itself on the wave-crest, swims off.
Just look: in the shadows the dogwood’s tart jewels are aglow on the bushes,
and, sunlit, the little grass blades, a-sparkle, tremble like old folks.
The sun still shines but so ripely that now only craft, slow and steady,
holds it aloft on the sky not to drop: it fears for its gold.
I too am slow and crafty in this crafty, slow radiance,
and I worry for you in the winter cold, the way firewood is worried;
blind worry about winter clothes ebbs and flows in your eyes
and as winter breath will be fogging its mirrors, so sleepy remorse
floods the blue radiance; on your lips the sentence drops off to sleep
and the kiss wakes up. Snow will come blackly with winter, the corners
of the wide autumn sky already are darkened, the steps of the hours
before dawn are already slippery with ice. Come then, fall asleep
under the long beards of night, and look, I’m your child but also
your man, your grown-up son and your lover, I’m ripe to share worries,
dead-earnest not only in poems. Soon we’ll lie down and my night ear
will hear in the dark the beating of sleeping cares on your heart.
I listen, and I wait. And just as a young fledgling stork
learning to soar in autumn will teeter back and forth in the sky,
so I toss on the broad day-bed. And slowly the woes waft me off.
I take them all over, their measured beating puts me to sleep;
we drop off, two sharing the one concern. And until dreams catch us,
the autumn night’s damp banner audibly, darkly, snaps.

Élesd-Nagytelekmajor,
1942. September 28–November 14

Translated by John Ridland and Peter V. Czipott