Ottó Orbán

On The Destruction of
the Twin Towers
of New York's World Trade Center

A New York-i Világkereskedelmi Központ két lerombolt tornyára

Time runs on and on, like the Danube flowing along in its bed,
We know not whence it comes, nor where we're being led.

Three black machines launched like arrows into the blue,
The madman's answer to this era's doubt-what is false, what true?
Blackest clouds billow from concrete with kerosene's bursting yellow bubble.
Babel falls, and Babylon's falling too in mounds of smoking rubble.

Time runs on and on, like the Danube flowing along in its bed,
We know not whence it comes, nor where we're being led.

Today's our day of slaughter, the news today brings news of ghastly death.
The voice today's a fearsome voice that cries out, Dies Irae! with the world's last breath,
Today is the day of wrath, and the day of the dead is today,
The dead will be gathered with mourners who grind their teeth as they pray.

Time runs on and on, like the Danube flowing along in its bed,
We know not whence it comes, nor where we're being led.

Shattered glass showers from myriad windows, from girders of toppling steel,
Bodies float drifting like feathers blown down from the blue sky-unreal!
Inconceivable, unimaginable-the bright citadel
On lower Manhattan suddenly sunken, subsiding in burning hell.

Time runs on and on, like the Danube flowing along in its bed,
We know not whence it comes, nor where we're being led.

What can be saved we must try to save from this flaring holocaust,
Pouring on water to drown the hot roofs, though all's been lost.
A tiger was preserved by Noah on his Ark: kept as a glowing ember.
A dead fireman's the city's cenotaph; and its monument, September.

Time runs on and on, like the Danube flowing along in its bed,
We know not whence it comes, nor where we're being led.

Translated by Jascha Kessler