2009-11-10

Ágnes Nemes Nagy: Spruce (Fenyő)

Big, yellow sky. A ridge is lying
heavily on the smooth meadow.
Dark iron filings of immobile
grass cover the magnetic ground.

There is a larch, it is at loss.
Something is buzzing. It is cold.
Something is buzzing: along the vast
trunk of the pine post with tattered bark,
with scaly roots it is moving up
a paleolithic telegram.

Higher up a bird, an unknown bird
above in the sky - the bird is
without a face, it frowns -,
the light behind it is now dimming,
blind windows, closing eyelids, -
just the buzz, buzzing is the night,
and the black heart of rays of light
crumpled to coal by invisible,
black foliage, as it purrs up.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath