GRÉAGÓIR Ó DÚILL
IE
Talamh an Éisc
Cha raibh mé ariamh in áit mar seo: taobh thall den chaolas, soilsíonn eireaball na gréine ar choillte crochta Gros Morne. Gearrann faoileán geal trasna na coille glaise mar a bheadh claíomh mór. Ní neamhchosúil le hEilean Iarmain Sgiathanaich. Monamar ciúin mara, sneachta ar shléibhte samhraidh agus an chiall go tiubh láidir díomasach go raibh impireacht againn, Gaela, gan fhios dúinn féin, Leithead Alban, na Garbhchríocha agus Inse Gall, Éire mhór agus Talamh seo an Éisc. Fir chlaímh níor choinnigh, ná cailíní na scadán, lucht déanta amhrán ná fir cheoil. Canann na badhbha dúinn, Fiodh na gCaor, Cúil Íodair Agus an French Shore anseo. Tá gearrtha ar leac thuama in aice láimhe anseo i reilig an chladaigh faoi fhear óg ―Died of exhaustion after the great storm of 1846‖. B‘shin ar tharla, cruinn díreach goirt.
Newfoundland
Never before in such a place as this: on the channel‘s far side, the sun‘s tail flicks the hung forests of Gros Morne. A seagull slashes the deepgreen forest like a claymore. Not unlike the Isle of Ornsay in Skye, with a murmur of seawater, snow on high summer mountains and some sense rising inchoate, strong, arrogant that we had an empire, we the Gael, though unaware, the breadth of Scotland, the Highlands and the Hebrides, broad Ireland and this New found land. Swordsmen failed to keep it, as did herring girls, song-makers, poets. The raven croaks for us, Vinegar Hill, Culloden, and the French Shore here. Incised in a headstone beside me, in the shoreline cemetery, a young man ―died of exhaustion after the great storm of 1846‖ Aye, that‘s what happened, that‘s the bitter truth.
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DUBLIN POETRY REVIEW