Radnóti Miklós: Forced March

 

 

Crazy when safe on the ground to get up and walk again,

the man stirs knees and ankles like some galvanized thing of pain,

but still he follows the road, You’d think he’d wings to life him

and the ditch is not his frined, he daren’t be a drifter.

And if you ask why not, he’ll maybe tell you yet

he has a wife in wait for him and a less mad, ugly death.

What a crazy piety, when yonder now for ages heart and home

have blistered to the dry wind raging,

house walls struck flat, the plum tree bare,

and night on the homestead crawlig with fear.

O If I could belive it – not only my heart holding

what I must hold to, but a home, waiting late:

Could it be yet! As once on the old cool porch

the bees of peace hummed, while plum jam grew rich,

and late summer stillness baked in the sleepy garden,

fruits rocked naked in the leaves,

and Fanny stood with her fair hair by the tawny hedgerow,

and the slow morning slowly tracked its shadow,-

but this can still be! The moon is soo round tonight!

Stay, wait my friend, shout at me! I’m on my feet!