The marathon runners approach the turning point:
Sunday, that day of sad songs
near the railway bridge
and clouds.
Your eyes, at zenith--
and to say this without using the body
is to run without touching the ground.

Thirty years ago
a transport train went by, open cars
loaded with silhouettes,
heads and shoulders cut from
the black paper of horror,
these people loved someone,
but the train comes back empty
every Sunday, only
a few hairpins and
some bits of charcoal
on the floors of the cars...

Who knows how to touch the ground,
who knows how not to touch the ground.

What's left is to believe
in the marathon's finish line
within two hours and forty minutes,
in the deafening roar of clouds
and open, empty cars
on the railroad bridge.

--Miroslav Holub
translated by David Young & Dana Habova

Copyright c 1982 by Oberlin College. May not be reproduced without permission.