Sándor Weöres (1913-1989), a major
poet with a great range
of voices and concerns. He was a Hungarian
aristocrat with
a Roma chieftain among his ancestors.
I. SOWING & REAPING
I've sown the moonlight –
I've nothing to reap,
I've baked the fog –
I've no loaf to keep,
I've talked to the walls –
I'm alone in the house,
I've loved the clouds –
I've no loving spouse,
I've no worldly treasure –
I've lived on thin air,
I've begotten poems –
I've no child for an heir,
so I'll be a statue –
widely seen, waiting,
standing in state
and gesticulating.
II. NOONDAY CLOUDS
On the hill where the foxes dig
their dens and the rabbits run,
our Kathie gazes up to the clouds
in the glaring summer sun.
A blade of grass in her lips,
her drowsy chin on her hands...
She marvels at the itinerant folks
of the sky in their shifting bands.
King Mog swims at the front,
he follows his two-pronged nose,
above him his crown, like a birthday cake,
and it hovers as he goes.
And in his wake runs the fool,
he broadly laughs in the sky,
and into the heavens from his hump
a serpent rises high.
And bald, in a broken barrow,
a kite, plucked clean and bare,
and there is Berryblood, King Mog's daughter,
she’s tearing out her hair.
Behind them trundles a fancy house
on many wheels, and inside
the princess of the circus
all dressed up for the ride.
She'd gladly give up her hundred frocks
and jewels just to run around
for only a single week
down here on the sunny ground.
Sándor Weöres
Translated from the Hungarian
& Edited by Thomas Land
If you have any comments on this poem, Thomas Land would be
pleased to hear them.
