STEPS by Eszter Forrai

translated from the Hungarian and edited by Thomas Ország-Land (July 2011)

 

Eszter Forrai (b. 1938) is a Jewish-Hungarian poet and painter who lives in Paris.

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(I)

CHRISTMAS

 

Mistletoe glowing white like marbles,

bunched with tiny leaves.

Streets festooned with mistletoe.

The sight of graceful pinetrees.

I leave a grieving daughter’s bouquet

upon an unknown grave.

And I remember the bars before me,

behind me, imagined and real.

Mother had filled the children’s stomachs

with stolen cabbage leaves.

Sand grated under our teeth… We had

not even crusts of bread.

Beyond the bars, the guard is slowly

pacing along his path.

The pacing soldier’s tunic is grey,

its buttons are glowing gold,

and we are waiting behind the bars.

I count the buttons. Eight.

His steps still echo through the yard.

Tonight they killed my father.

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(II)

ORPHANED SHOES

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Climbing or descending,

these steps of the river embankment,

these steep stone slabs of the quay

form a stairway up from the playful waves

towards the sun in the heavens

and the soothing quilt of the sky

that hold the world in warmth.

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But then it was January

and the steps were cruelly cold,

the steps that led down to the icy Danube –

we were told to remove our shoes

and stand in barefooted lines

as the soldiers loaded their rifles

beneath the weeping sky.

 

The soldiers were not aiming toy guns.

The siege was not played out with toy bombs,

and we had not even time

to blow our dreams away –

And the infamy was witnessed

by the orphaned lines of the children’s

shoes, awaiting our fate on the quay.

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(III)

SARAH WALKS

 

My daughter’s very first steps…

A conquest, a leap to the target,

a ribbon-ripping, brilliant

epic triumph! My stumbling,

intrepid, robust princess

has boldly set out! Sarah walks.

Lo! Her frozen terrain

has come alive. The walls

around her have steadied. And,

to the sound of her hesitant steps,

I learn to adjust my life.

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(IV)

SARAH DANCING

 

Green is this rustic, lakeside world

that I’ve adopted,

with a riot of scattering silver pearls

of my daughter’s laughter, the lines

of unfolding yellow water-lilies

and a glowing grey and green-blue sky.

I’ve brought ladybirds to ride them

over the deep –

The sky is turning somersaults,

its chuckles exploding in cheerful vapours;

but the evening trees below

are sighing, sighing gusts of storms.

Native to these woodland slopes,

we race across them.

Our healthy bodies pulse to our rhythm

and love of dancing, they whirl in step

with the music of bluebells.

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(V)

BIRTHDAY!

 

A volcano aged 16: the silent

flow of Sarah’s yearning has burst.

My green-eyed daughter clasps to her breasts

a blue-eyed lad, and I watch from afar

the raging lava, the vapours, the flames,

the incandescent burning rocks

of her passion blasting skywards –

my daughter has turned 16 and embarked

on the Milky Way of adult emotions.

 

I behold the pulsating glow of her star,

I hearken to the pace of her heartbeat

from a distant planet by the waters

lapping against the steps of the quay.

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THOMAS ORSZÁG-LAND is a poet and award-winning foreign correspondent based in Budapest. His recent books of Holocaust poetry translated from the Hungarian include DEATHMARCH by Miklós Radnóti (Snakeslin & The Penniless Press, England, 2009) and CHRISTMAS IN AUSCHWITZ by András Mezei (Smokestack Press, England, 2010).

 

 

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