And Thus, Perhaps, I Will Reflect . . . ?

Miklós Radnóti

1937

I lived, but as for living I was shiftless in my life,

knew always I’d be buried here when all was done,

that year layers itself upon year, clod on clod, stone on stone,

that in the chill and wormy dark the body swells,

and cold, too, lies the fathom-deep and naked bone.

That up there scurrying time is ransacking my poems,

that down, down, down…

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Creator Bio

Miklós Radnóti

1909–1944

Miklós Radnóti is widely recognized as one of the greatest Hungarian poets of the twentieth century. He came from a highly acculturated Budapest family and received no Jewish education or introduction to Jewish ritual. He remained indifferent to Jewish affairs his entire life, assertively proclaiming his freedom from Jewish particularism. He and his wife converted to Catholicism in 1943 in an effort to save themselves from persecution. Although his poems have little Jewish content, they foretell and then record the savagery of the Nazi years. While serving in a forced labor battalion during the war, he was shot dead by his Hungarian guards.

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And Thus, Perhaps, I Will Reflect . . . ?

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