We stood on the station platform,
my precious grandmother and me,
an old woman and an awkward boy,
in silent, sombre unity.
This was the parting of our ways
as my grandmother had foreseen,
our paths would never cross again,
there would be only memories to glean.
The grey murkiness of the station
seeped into my tender heart.
There were but minutes left
to break the bond and then depart.
When grandmother hugged me,
I thought she’d never let me go.
Self-consciously I fought back tears
as my defenceless being took the blow.
My fate brought me to Africa,
Grandma returned to Hungary.
We were continents apart,
As was decreed by destiny.
Within a year my grandma died,
that stronghold of my childhood years.
How could I have been so cruel
not to gift her with my tears?
Iván Kovács
I am because I sense, feel and think,
rise, fall, dream and aspire,
like old romantics who still wrote in ink,
but my words demand they be written in fire.
Life from the start has never been dull,
as witnessed by the secrets buried in my skull.
In our times, transparency is the rule,
so, I’ll say it out loud like everyone’s fool:
I have known the mystic and mundane,
the tragic and ecstatic, the sacred and profane.
Thus, there is nothing that I need to annul
as I reveal the secrets buried in my skull.
I record my life in verse as if written in blood,
the illnesses and accidents, hurts and blows,
the times of drought, and times of flood,
and moments of quiet as the noisy mind slows.
So, in times of peace and badly needed lull,
let me unearth what’s buried in my skull.
Iván Kovács
Dream. Dare. Do.
Poem
Debrecen irodalmi közösségének hivatalos oldala
© debrecenliterature.hu Minden jog fenntartva! Adatvédelem