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Don't despair
5.6.2013 Day of the Environment
On this day, Gabriel Rosenstock sends an image linked to a poem by Anna Akhmatova and explains:
"Perhaps poetry is the only hope? I have dedicated my translation below to the politicians and bankers who have left Ireland in the wretched state she is in ..."
G.
Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,
Death's great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?
Death's great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.
And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses --
something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.
to the ruined, dirty houses --
something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.
~ Anna Akhmatova ~
(Poems of Akhmatova, edited and translated by Stanley Kunitz with Max Hayward)
translation into Gaelic by Gabriel Rosenstock
TIOMNAÍM AN tAISTRIÚCHÁN SEO DO NA POLAITEOIRÍ AGUS DO NA BAINCÉIRÍ A d’FHÁG ÉIRE SA RIOCHT INA bhFUIL SÍ.
Feall is creach is reic déanta ar an uile ní,
scríobann eite mhór dhubh an Bháis an t-aer,
an ainnise dulta go smior ionainn.
Conas nach bhfuil éadóchas orainn?
Ó na coillte máguaird, isló,
séideann na silíní an samhradh isteach fán mbaile;
lonraíonn na spéartha doimhne gléineacha istoíche
le réaltbhuíonta nua.
Agus druideann an ní míorúilteach an-ghar
do na bathlaigh shalacha –
rud éigin nach eol d’aon neach beo
ach atá fiáin istigh san ucht againn leis na cianta.
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