Thirty-three fishermen of Helemba

Thirty-three fishermen of Helemba
catch thirty-three fish of Helemba,
bury them in the sandpit.
Among the hollows they cannot see, cannot hear,
the free fish of Helemba
grope about in the fog of the mine.
Meanwhile, the thirty-three fishermen of Helemba
drift down on their raft along the Danube, beyond the Ipoly.
They are free, they scoff at the signs,
for borders are only lines to them.

The fish of Helemba from the mine
crawl back into the riverbed
through the vineyards, the cellars, the embankment.
The sand martins, the bee-eaters
hide in the hollows carved without tools, before the far bank.
On the island, in the orange grove, they plunder.

The wives and husbands of the fishermen of Helemba,
the pebbles, the signs on the shore only spin
like whistles, bells, quivering with the wind.
The forms of oppression, of destruction,
the memories, the possibilities of dialogue,
their light-sensitive, fading imprints:

Thirty-three fishermen of Helemba sit on a chair,
their clothes made of fabric dyed with poison sublimated into pigment.
They drink heavy red wine, white for spritzers too, in the silt
they fry the thirty-three fish of Helemba, opposite them
sometimes the king sits, sometimes the archbishop, the chapter,
the peace conference, the border-drawing commission,
the members of the water authority project them all, read them all.

Bridges are formed or broken, built and destroyed,
every development in the landscape:
thirty-three, thirty-two, fourteen—
ever fewer fishermen’s eyes
remain, fading with time, passing away.