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Poetry

Standing Still for the Night

By Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Translated from Gaelic by Brian Crowe

Cast your dark line
over broken tides.
Blanket the blank spaces.
Stars spring
from your cracks
and the moon rides
in your pocket.

Cast it like shadows
flown from your back.
Hold
that
pose.
Take into you
canyon and wood.

Late nights when
we were together
busying ourselves
in barrooms,
I’d enjoy
our ignorance.

Now I wait for our lines
to potentially collide;
you will hear the gossip
that takes away my
breath.

For I’m not whole,
nor was I ever clean.
But it’s me still:
a woman on the line,
bleached and brittle
like old paper.

Cast your nets overseas
and land on your
shadow. My thoughts
will blow away
the canyon walls
and wind will wheeze
through.

© Nuala Ní Dhomhnaili. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2004 by Brian Crowe. All rights reserved.

English Gaelic (Original)

Cast your dark line
over broken tides.
Blanket the blank spaces.
Stars spring
from your cracks
and the moon rides
in your pocket.

Cast it like shadows
flown from your back.
Hold
that
pose.
Take into you
canyon and wood.

Late nights when
we were together
busying ourselves
in barrooms,
I’d enjoy
our ignorance.

Now I wait for our lines
to potentially collide;
you will hear the gossip
that takes away my
breath.

For I’m not whole,
nor was I ever clean.
But it’s me still:
a woman on the line,
bleached and brittle
like old paper.

Cast your nets overseas
and land on your
shadow. My thoughts
will blow away
the canyon walls
and wind will wheeze
through.

Fáilte an Ghalláin Roimh Titim na hoíche

Leath do bhrat dorcha
ar mhuir is ar thaoide,
leath é ar na maolchnocáin,
scinneann na réalta
as scoilteanna i d’fhallaing,
éiríonn an ré
as aon phóca amháin.

Leath é mar a leathais
do chuilt suain ormsa,
líonann na scáileanna
as do mhuinearthlaí lán,
fáisc i ngreim daingean
an talamh go hiomlán,
lion suas le d’fhórsa
gach glean is gach má.

Oícheanta fadó
nuair a bhíomar sa phuball
cluthar in abhras,
i bhfionnadh na ngabhar,
má leathais do bhairlín ar raithneach
ba chuma,
do b’fhearr ná riamh an ramsach
a bhaineamar as.

D’fhanainn i bhfillte
do phluide is do chochail,
thiteadh mo shuan orm
i ngan fhios dom féin
Chloisteá an sioscadh
is mé ag caint trí mo chodladh;
d’imíodh an tine in éag
diaidh ar ndiaidh.

Ní corp atá curtha
faoi lár na lice
seo; fós ní haon chnámharlach
measctha le haol.
Mise atá fós ann,
Fas, bean Uin Mhic Uige,
reoite im’ charraig
mar a bhain do bhean Lot.

Leath do phluid uaignis
thar muir is thar talamh,
titfidh na scáileanna anuas
ceann ar cheann,
séidfidh mo chuimhní
trí phóirsí na cloiche
seinnfidh an ghaoth
seordán síoraí orm.

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