Light within the Shade: Eight Hundred Years of Hungarian Poetry

Calendar

182 | Light within the Shade Calendar January Sunrise is late, and the dark, the denseness, comes up to the brim of heaven. It’s so filled up with the black that it’s ready to spill. The step of the dawn on the ice crackles its colorless chill. February 5, 1941 February Having glided, and swayed, and settled, the snow is melting already, the flow carves out a passage; sunbeams are gleaming, skylights are beaming, the sunbeams wink in their gleaming. Listen, the white-voiced sheep bleat their woolly reply; chirping, the sparrow ruffles its wings at the sky. February 21, 1941 March Look, the puddle’s got goose pimples! March and its boisterous breezes play under the trees, simply yelling like roisterers, The chilly bud has not unbuttoned, nor spider spun its caul, but chicks run everywhere, each one a golden yellow ball. February 26, 1941 m i k lós r adnó t i | 183 April A barefoot breeze winces on broken glass. A squeal; limping, it runs away. O April, April, what is this? The sun won’t shine, the buds delay— no hint of leaves or flowers their dripping snouts reveal under the whistling sky. March 12, 1939 May The petal shakes, falls from the bough; in blanching fragrances the dusk comes now. Deep in the chilly mountain breeze wade richly laden avenues of trees. The warm air shivers, steals away; the chestnut-candles glimmer, lift and sway. February 25, 1941 June Behold the noon in its miraculous power: above, the flawless and unwrinkled sky; along the roads, acacias in flower; the stream throws out a comb of golden ply, and in the brilliance, bold calligraphy is idly, glitteringly, written by a boastful, diamond-budded dragonfly. February 28, 1941 July Scowling, colicky, the cloudpack claps the air. Showers, barefoot, dance around, 184 | Light within the Shade naked white, with soaking hair. Tired with this, they go to ground; evening light. Summer, clean-limbed, leans between the sycamores, their faces bright. June 12, 1940 August Upon the matted meadows the blaring sunshine beams; and yellowing in leafshade the golden apple gleams. The squirrel squawks; within the glowing chestnut, prickly globes are growing. July 21, 1940 September O how can I have lived all these Septembers! Under the trees brown gems, the starry embers of chestnut-falls—evoking Africa, her fiery veins! Before the cooling rains. Dusk makes its bed among the fading clouds, on the exhausted trees falls a veiled glow; with hair undone the sweet Fall enters now. July 15, 1940 October Cold and gold the blustering, wanderers rest from wandering. Mouse in pantry gnaws its cheese, gold is burning in the trees. All is golden-yellow, where yellow corn does not yet dare m i k lós r adnó t i | 185 pawn the fawnsilk gonfalon: so it flaunts its raingold awn. February 7, 1941 November The frost has come, it shrieks upon the wall; Listen! the teeth of skulls are chattering. Among the branches, sere and brown with Fall, grey wisps of crazy mirth are pattering. And do I fear the owl’s foreboding call? Perhaps. Perhaps not at all. January 14, 1939 December No more than a wraith at noon, the sun is a silver full moon. Mist, like a torpid bird, glides. Snow falls through the night; an angel soughs in the gloom. Silent through drifting snow death in its nakedness strides. February 11, 1941 ...