Five Minutes after the Air Raid by Miroslav Holub

Here is the fourth poem in the mini-series of new translations. As previously stated the translations are taken from German translations of the original Czech and subsequently translated here into English.

Five Minutes after the Air Raid

In Pilsen,
Bahnhofstraße 26,
she climbed to the third floor,
up the stairs, all that remained
of the whole house,
opened the door,
that led into the sky,
stared over the abyss.

Because here
the world ended.

Then she closed it firmly
so that neither
Sirius
or Aldebaran
could call her from the kitchen,
descended the stairs
and took her place,
to wait
for the house to grow back
and her husband to come home
from the ashes
and the children's legs
to be stuck back on.

In the morning they found her
turned to stone.
Sparrows pecked from her hands.

----
gw 2009