Ποιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do

CATHAL Ó SEARCAIGH

 

 

"What is pitiable is to compare any Irish poet to his English 'superiors'. This is the type of neo-colonial mess which we wake up to each morning in the Anglosphere, I'm afraid!

Have a look at the Index to the newly-published „Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry“

http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Handbook-Modern-Poetry-Handbooks/dp/0199561249

My friend and contemporary CATHAL Ó SEARCAIGH doesn't get a mention!
It is ridiculous. He is a poet of world standing! Oxford should know that.

What is wrong with them?

I attach some poems of his in my translation. Please post them on your site as a downloadable attachment, perhaps? (For reading purposes only, not for reproduction elsewhere).

His memoirs, published by Simon & Schuster are also worth reading."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Light-Distant-Hills-A-Memoir/dp/1847370632

Gabriel Rosenstock

29.12.2012

 

 

In a Grave Time:

poems by Cathal Ó Searcaigh

Translated from the Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock

 

 

In A Grave Time

An tAm Marfach ina Mairimid

The sky today as translucent

as the Buddha’s omniscient eye:

a white dove flew by

 

Its bright angelic wings spelled out

hope – could it be –

hope in this infirmity?

 

The words were not out of my mouth

when a shot was fired. The sky

an ocean of blood. No lie.

 

I cannot look up to the heavens

without seeing on the ground

the dove that fell to earth without a sound.

 

Today, strange as it is to claim,

all the love I have for God

is drowned in that bird’s blood.

 

How can I look any more

at a sky that is gore,

nothing but gore.

 

Inniu is an spéir chomh soiléir

le súil lánléargais an Bhúda

chonaic mé colmán bán ag triall tharam

 

A sciathán geal aingil

ag tuar dóchais, a deirim liom féin,

as an duibheagán seo ina mairim

 

Ach ní raibh na focla as mo bhéal

nuair a chuala mé an t-urchar. Fágadh an spéir

dearg le fuil an éin ghlé.

 

Inniu níl spléachadh dá dtugaim ar an spéir

nach léir domh mo cholmán bán, a choirpín

mín marbh ag titim ó ghorm go talamh.

 

Inniu agus ní ag maíomh atá mé

tá a bhfuil ionam de ghrá Dé

báite i bhfuil dhearg an éin sin.

 

Ní thig liom m’aghaidh a thabhairt níos mó

ar spéir atá ag cur fola

ar spéir atá ag cur fola.

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