Pintér, László: It was Spring in October
Written by Admin in English -
Autumn was here. The leaves prepared to fall.
The buds began to hide in coated sap.
Winter’s cold premonition, felt by all…
Fruit-laden branches bent, ready to snap.
But spring fever pulsed, swelling arteries,
the smell of March, love’s rapture filled the heart,
mind opened wide for snow-white reveries:
the taste of freedom wrought this – rent the dark.
Eleven years’ oppression that this fruit
has grown in us, stone hard, just like our lives.
What pain by pain our inner sanctum built
now proudly marched with us, no more denied.
October’s sushine-painted, rosy bliss,
this hope-fed warmth, this sweet tasting honey,
prayed for by millions, freedom’s first kiss –
was cruelly crushed by lying tyranny.
Uplifting, mighty, powerful and great,
t’was new, Magyar, and shone bright as the Sun,
a healthy bloom, as fresh as the spring fields –
crushed in a day, fruits stolen by the gun.
Our spirits swelled, ready to flood the Earth,
a biblical flood: we were its Noah,
and hearts were resting, timeless, peace unearthed,
tyranny’s foundation shook, fell, was gone.
But it was not to be. A new dawn, merciless,
chilling our souls, once more swept through the fall;
a cold storm, unstoppable, pitiless,
and in this storm we once more lost it all.
Remained a life – if one could call it that –
a pitiful existence to be saved:
a crack left to escape, and that was that:
crushed silence was the only thing that waved.
Autumn it was. The leaves blew off the trees,
the buds encased themselves in frozen sap.
One felt the winter. Lonely reveries,
lost dreams and wasted fruit left to recap.
(Translated by Frank Veszely, August 3, 2006)