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

Gyula Juhász: Trees (Fák)

Quiet are the trees in the garden
standing still in the autumnal light.
Daydreaming maybe about summer,
one or two leaves are falling at times.

Stillness of life is filling this peace,
the tranquility, this large breed,
sacred web of eternal forces,
I, the fallen leaf, will be vanished.

I will then be part of dry leaves,
while above me the young trees stretched high 
are going to show with victory
their crown up to the eternal sky.

Translated by: Maria Bencsath