Tuesday, March 30, 2010

A Battle Lost


Van Gogh's Prayer by János Pilinszky (originally published in Poetry, March 2008)

A battle lost in the cornfields
and in the sky a victory.
Birds, the sun and birds again.
By night, what will be left of me?

By night, only a row of lamps,
a wall of yellow clay that shines,
and down the garden, through the trees,
like candles in a row, the panes....rest of poem, here.

It might seem unfair, that title, as it is Van Gogh's birthday, but...it's my blog. Such as it is. Hazel at the Clever Pup has a nice tribute today.

[the first of 3(versions) La chambre de Van Gogh à Arles in VG museum/Amsterdam via French wikipedia; Rami di mandorlo in fiore/Amandier en fleurs is a postcard via my old scanner. Update, nope. Here is a much better link via Arianna at Wikimedia Commons.]

3 comments:

AB said...

Didn't know that there are 3 versions. Oops.

Angie Muresan said...

Girl, you sometimes are too smart for me!
As I am sick at the moment and stuffed with antibiotics, I have to say that bed looks mighty comfy.

Giulia said...

Smart? Nah. A smart aleck? (yea;)

Take care of yourself. I'm feeling very blechy myself. Wrote to a fellow blogger for permission to use a pic just to keep a Wednesday going. She's got sick ones at home, too. People were sick at the market from where I just came. I can't even write English at moment. Yikes.

ciao Angie.