Walnut Shade Cover

by Sándor Dudás

BRIGHT IN THE SHADE

Born in Bükkalja and a true follower of János Arany, Sándor Dudás (1941-2010) was a poet, painter, intellectual and a versatile citizen. His sixty-nine poems comprised by his posthumously published volume provide a picture of his land of walnut tree tranquility, in almost all its shades.

Walnut Shade Cover – the title of the volume glitters like gold and casts darkness at the same time as it refers both to life and death, because it implies alike the bright silences of summers and autumns in the homeland and the glooming image of the coffin.

The author’s book, spiced with his own paintings, provides the reader a with a ‘calendar’ of a full range of homeland landscapes, both in its appearances and its contents : all the beauty that the Hungarian soul is familiar with and needs to be fed on.

The blonde curls of waving spring are gone and are replaced by grey curls, just like dew has turned into frost in the world outside. His book spans the lifetime of a man.

As it wanders through images of dying spring winds, arches of blossoming apple trees, overripe August greengages and walnuts searching for light under leaf litter kaleidoscope towards branches laden with snow and frost, this lyric portrays in its evanescence the vibrations of the soul, which finally forms a farewell message – a sign left behind.

” Every human life is the story of failures, downfalls and failed dreams… But the idea of death rationally rounds your story up, making it clear that your little life has always been part of God’ s plan from the very beginning. ” – says Laszlo Cs. Szabo. Let us just hope that his poetry, ending suddenly in the poet’s autum time was part of God’s will and so it is complete. Its meaning will shine and glitter when we read it.

Károly Cseh

Mezőkövesd, 6th March, 2010.

The book is available in Hungarian!