Ottó Kiss: Star-Picking Mario

FROM THE REEDS AND FROM THE DUNE

I have run away from home
three times.
First as far as the door,
next as the next door,
last as the outskirts
of the housing estate.
If I run away another time
I won't turn back again,
I'll find my way home anyway
as Earth is round.

*

The other day we went down
to the pond with Mario.
Late in the evening
stars appeared in the water.
Mario said that he would
catch them all for me
with a net at night,
and if some would be left
because of the poor light
he would gather them in the morning.
We went there in the afternoon
and there were no stars, indeed,
but I didn't see any with Mario.
Then he said that
he kept them safe at home
in the glass cabinet,
but I would have to look up
from my window in the evening,
by then he would place them all in the sky.

*

Our Terri is very ill these days.
It has some foreign
illness at that.
A diagnose,
that's what the vet said.
And it's certain now.

*

Storks are
much more clever
than men,
they not only walk on the ground
and wade in water,
they also fly.
It's not by chance
that they have made everyone believe
that it's they who bring us babes.

*

I always agree
with everyone
and never agree
with anyone,
because I
always
disagree
with me.

*

Yesterday Mario, the sonny
of our new neighbours, said me
that none would take fancy to
a little girl unless
she says everything twice.
As for Mum she says
that such things are childish,
and a big girl like me
should not believe childish things.
And I think Mum is right.
And I think Mum is right.

*

In the evening
it was lightening so densely
that I thought
it was day. Yet there was
no rain, no thunder.
I guess
they weren't angry
above,
only could not sleep and were
switching the light on and off.
That which doesn't happen
is night.
And that which happens
is day.
So that a perfect light
should shine one day,
everything must happen
sooner or later.

*

Once
I reached out twice
for something
but I couldn't reach it.
Then that something
took pity of me
and disappeared.

(Fragment, translated by István Tótfalusi)