My Hungarian Vista: Baltazar, Kovacs, Radnoti.

• Author: Sommers, William
• Position: Andras Baltazar, Andras Kovacs, & Miklos Radnoti

Editor's Note: Great poets and their poetry inspire, provoke, comfort, unify and bring tears and laughter generation after generation. In Hungary great poets are revered, perhaps none more so than Miklos Radnoti. In this evocative memoir Bill Sommers describes how poetry and the memory of Radnoti helped to rekindle a friendship with a former Hungarian colleague, bridging a gap of 16 years. His connection to Hungary and two old friends and to Radnoti and his poetry have become a permanent part of his life. -Assoc. Ed.

During the 2009 holidays I sent a greeting card--along with a short poem--to an old friend - Andras Baltazar--in Budapest with whom I worked on local environmental projects in Hungary in the early 90s. I wasn't sure that his e-mail was still the one I had in my address book. My wife and I lived in Krakow, Poland where I was assigned to a local environmental project that focused on a group of five cities in Poland and two in Hungary. I visited the Hungarian projects monthly to assess progress and to pay consultant and office costs. Andras saw to the day-to-day operations and kept our "book" on project outlay and progress. When I left in 1995, we kept in touch via sporadic e-mails. By the time I rolled up my career in 2003, we had pretty much lost our connection. Still, I wanted to try one more time.

Happily, the holiday card--with a seasonal poem--did the trick. Andras sent a fulsome, detailed response that brought back a boatload of memories, filling a sixteen-year gap. Receiving my poem, led him to detail the 2009 Hungarian festivities focused on the birth-centenary of Hungary's revered poet-martyr--Miklos Radnoti. And then, as if to tie us all together again--though sadly--he wrote of the recent death of Andras Kovacs, our mutual--and valued--friend when we worked together in Hungary, particularly, in Gyor, Kovacs' home town. This news revived an all but forgotten image of the two Andras and the door they opened for me to the life and memory of Miklos Radnoti.

As close as I can remember, here's how it all came about.

In Hungary Andras and I worked together--and directly--with Borsod County and its major city, Miskolc, located in an area north of Budapest, near the Slovakian border. We tried, via a set of local consultants, to assist both the county and the city to build a substantial environmental focus in an area beset by difficult problems, left over with the collapse of the Soviet-type production system. But the prize operation was focused on the very large and bustling city of Gyor, about two hours directly east of Budapest. The city was eager to rebuild its local communal service company with particular emphasis on the remediation of its expanding landfill operation. Andras Kovacs, who also was the administrator of the local communal service company, headed this local project. And it was with him that Andras Baltazar and I incorporated a long-standing friendship. Our project provided Andras Kovacs a series of stateside consultants and in our nearly four years of activity made measurably significant improvement. But the personal off shoot reflected a much deeper relationship than I had anticipated. And bit-by-bit, after I left, I was drawn, because of their direction, to the poetry of Miklos Radnoti, his life and tragic death.

As the project reached its final weeks, I took my last Krakow-to-Gyor visit, inspecting our final effort, which focused on harnessing methane gas from the...