The Prayer of Van Gogh

Humbling defeat in the fields.
The air held by invaders.
Birds, the sun, and again birds.
By night what will be left of me?

At night only the row of lamps
the yellow wall of dry mud
and from the bottom of the garden, through trees,
like a row of candles, the windows,

where I too, dwelt and do not dwell,
the house where I lived and do not live,
the roof which tucked me in safely.
Ah God, then you covered me up safely.

~ János Pilinszky, translated by János Csokits and Ted Hughes
from Translating Poetry: The Double Labyrinth, edited by Daniel Weissbort