2013-07-21

Kala Ramesh: haiku, haibun agus Pune

Dhá leabhar ar na bacáin agam. Haiku agus tanka le K. Ramesh a luamar cheana anseo. Fear is ea é.  Agus haiku agus haibun le Kala Ramesh, bean. Casadh an bheirt acu orm san India. Tá cur síos ar chúrsaí haiku san India ar an suíomh gréasáin  seo a leanas agus ar cheardlann haiku a thugas ann:

www.ahundredgourds.com

Tá séimhe agus grástúlacht sna haiku ag Kala. Tá an India iontu agus spioradáltacht ársa na tíre sin!

fuineadh gréine
mo scáil á tionlacan agam
chun na mara

Is i mBéarla a scríobhann sí. Aisteach go leor, níl sí in ann haiku a scríobh ina teanga féin, an Tamailis. Is trua sin. Gabhann traidisiún saibhir na filíochta  Tamailise i bhfad siar. Cumadh an dán seo, mar shampla, sular rugadh Críost:

குறிஞ்சி - தலைவன் கூற்று

யாயும் ஞாயும் யாரா கியரோ
எந்தையும் நுந்தையும் எம்முறைக் கேளிர்
யானும் நீயும் எவ்வழி யறிதும்
செம்புலப் பெயனீர் போல
அன்புடை நெஞ்சம் தாங்கலந் தனவே.

-செம்புலப் பெயனீரார்.

Cré dhearg agus báisteach throm

Cén gaol a bheadh ag mo mháthairse
led mháthairse? Cén gaol a bheadh ag
m’athairse le d’athairse ar aon nós? Agus
conas a casadh an bheirt againne ar a chéile?
Sea, tháinig ár gcroí le chéile
mar chré dhearg is mar bháisteach throm.

Dán dhá mhíle bliain d’aois agus cheapfá gur inné a scríobhadh é. Ar ais chuig haiku Kala agus bí cinnte go mbeidh mé ag tathant ar fhilí haiku na hIndia scríobh ina dteanga féin as seo amach.

cuach ag caí –
tachrán sráide
ag damhsa dúinn


urnaí maidine
an ghrian
idir mo lámha

fuadar maidine
an ghrian
á luascadh i mbraon drúchta

an ghaoth i measc na gcnoc
is amhrán aoire
á iompar aici

Ní i mBéarla a bhí amhrán an aoire, cuirfidh mé geall! Haiku agus haibun a bheidh sa leabhar nua seo de chuid Kala. Cad is haibun ann? Luaitear haibun den chéad uair i litir a scríobh Bashō chuig a dheisceabal Kyorai sa bhliain 1690. (Bhí de phribhléid agam seasamh tráth i mbothán Kyorai lasmuigh de Kyoto agus cuairt a thabhairt ar a uaigh).

Meascán de phrós is de haiku is ea haibun. Fágfaidh mé fút féin a thuilleadh taighde a dhéanamh ina thaobh más maith leat. D’fhéadfadh haiku a bheith i dtús, lár nó i  ndeireadh an phróis. Duaisiarracht haibun is ea an sampla a leanas de chuid Kala Ramesh agus is ina thús atá an haiku ann :

An Jacaranda Gorm

ag feitheamh le glaoch
nár tháinig riamh …
oíche chinn bliana

“Mise an cailín  aimsire a bhí agat. An cuimhin leat mé?

An té a cheanglaíodh na barriallacha duit is a réitíodh na chapathi duit is an curaí prátaí úd. Do lón a phacáil is tú a thionlacan go dtí stad an bhus.
Thagadh an bus scoile go dtí an cúinne sráide seo againne thart ar 8 am gach lá. Miongháire ar d’aghaidh is tú ag croitheadh láimhe chugam, ag tathant orm a bheith romhat, ag feitheamh leat, ar do theacht abhaile duit.
Bhí guth ard agat.
Sa chás go mbeadh fonn ort teacht agus mé a fheiceáil, táim ag cur fúm in Ashram Jacaranda na Seanóirí. Uimh 18, Lána na Banríona, Pune -411009.
Cuir tuairisc Shalini bai.
Tá aithne ag gach éinne orm anseo agus tá aithne acu ortsa chomh maith. Bím ag caint mar gheall ort an t-am ar fad leis na háitritheoirí eile anseo. Chuireas cárta mar seo chugat bliain ó shin ach is dócha nach bhfuair tú é …”

~

Más é sin an chéad uair duit haibun a léamh is dóigh liom gur sampla maith is ea é. Corraíonn sé mise ach go háirithe. Corraíonn sé mé is priocann mo choinsias. 

Ní rabhas riamh in Pune (Poona) thuasluaite. Is ann a bhí a ashram ag Rajneesh ar a dtugtar Osho inniu. Bhíos chun cuairt a thabhairt air. Bhí léirmheas scríofa agam ar leabhar leis ar Comhar agus d’iarr an gúrú ar Éireannach ann é a aistriú dó. Paddy ab ainm dó. N’fheadar cad ina thaobh nár chuas ann nó cad a bhí do mo tharrac siar. Ní rabhas ullamh.

An Paddy seo ach go háirithe, saineolaí ar Jung ab ea é agus é lonnaithe in Zürich más buan mo chuimhne. Sheolas leabhar filíochta chuige ‘Déan anailís air sin!’ arsa mise leis. Scríobh sé litir fiche leathanach ar ais chugam. Nílim i gceart ó shin!

Bhí Osho in Éirinn sa bhliain 1986 ach níor fhan sé i bhfad inár measc, 11 lá ar fad agus é istigh ina sheomra in Óstán Jurys i Luimneach. Níor tugadh cead amach dó agus níor tugadh cead dó cainteanna poiblí a thabhairt do mhuintir Luimnigh. Sin í an fhírinne ghlan!


2013-07-19

Bo Yin Ra

 Tagraíonn an misteach Gearmánach Bo Yin Ra don bhreitheamh ciúin sin istigh ionainn féin a dhearbhaíonn ráiteas éigin, focal éigin, a bheith fíor. Ach chun go n-aithneoimis rud éigin a bheith fíor, caithfimid é a thuiscint i dtosach. (Nó an gcaithfimid)? 

‘Tá áitreabh Dé fara daoine . . . (Apacailipsis 21:3) 

Cad is brí leis sin? B’fhéidir go bhfuil Bo Yin Ra in ann a rá linn:

Cén fáth a bhfuil ainm aisteach mar sin air, Bo Yin Ra? Is mar Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken (1876 -1943) a tháinig sé ar an saol. Meabhraíonn sé dúinn go bhfuil ainmneacha daoine á n-athrú ó aimsir an tSean-Tiomna:

Ní thabharfar Abrám mar ainm ort feasta, ach tabharfar Abrahám ort  . . . ’(Geineasas, 17:5). 
‘Iacób is ainm duit; ní thabharfar Iacób mar ainm ort feasta, ach beidh Iosrael mar ainm ort.’ (Geineasas, 35:10).

Bhí Eckhart Tolle cúig bliana déag d’aois agus cónaí air sa Spáinn nuair a tháinig bean Ghearmánach chun cónaithe leo. Nuair a d’imigh sise ar ais chun na Gearmáine, d’fhág sí roinnt leabhar ina diaidh, ina measc leabhair le Bo Yin Ra. Cuireadh an síol d’fhéadfá a rá. Áirítear Tolle ar dhuine de na teagascóirí spioradálta is fearr ar domhan, droichead idir Iarthar agus Oirthear ar go leor bealaí:


B’fhéidir nach mbeadh a leithéid de theagascóir againn in aon chor murach Bo Yin Ra.

2013-07-18

Luan

Íomhá Ron Rosenstock
luan a chuaigh ar strae
is a tháinig abhaile -
oileán acla
a lost halo
has finally come home -
achill island

2013-07-17

Greann na nGiúdach

Eagrán méadaithe ar fáil go luath.
New expanded edition of Gabriel Rosenstock's Greann na nGiúdach, a digest of Jewish wit and humour, available shortly as ebook.
Money back if you don't laugh.

2013-07-16

The Rejection of the Early Morning Dew

Meandering thoughts on literature and translation

 What is Europe? What kind of a union have we signed up to anyway? I signed up to a union of minorities and of regions and not a strong centrist Europe that would be dictated by Berlin. Having said that, being the son of a German father, I grew up in a house full of German-language books and journals. I even remember, though my German wouldn’t have been good enough at the time, seeing journals coming to the house that were edited by people that I would later translate myself. People like the (former) East German poet Peter Huchel. I loved translating Huchel into Irish: An Spealadóir Polannach has some beautiful illustrations by Bernd Rosenheim and was an Irish-language Book of the Year when it came out. He is such an interesting figure, Huchel!

 So, why do I translate?  Goethe was probably one of the first people in Europe to talk about Weltliteratur, or world literature, and to create an east-west cross-pollination in his West-östlicher Diwan. The same impulse is in a lot of my own work. Three volumes of Guthanna Beannaithe an Domhain, in which shamans, sages and saints rub shoulders, including Hafez, beloved of Goethe, are of a higher spiritual, cultural, poetic and aesthetic order than quite a lot of the contemporary German-language poets that I have translated, with fellow mariner on these rough seas, Hans-Christian Oeser. I’m more of a Gaelic voice for those traditions – tweeting a daily haiku in translation, for instance – than a champion of modern German literature.

I’m not convinced that we know what we mean, in Ireland, by saying we are Europeans. Do we feel European, prefer European cuisine, cinema, literature to that of the Anglosphere? No.  Our first duty is to find out, as writers and as artists and as citizens and people, what we are as human beings and can literature, can the arts, enlighten us on this question? To tell you the truth, I find more solace, more insight and more wisdom in the cultures of the east than I can find in the cultures of the west. The Anglosphere bores me. But, one must engage with it and with the West because one is living here and, like it or not, I’m a Western! 
 
It’s interesting to be an intermediary between cultures through the medium of Irish because English is not really a vital tool in Ireland, or even much in merry England, in terms of translating other cultures. I would say there is more being done in Ireland through the medium of Irish, in terms of literary translation – much much more – than what’s being done through the medium of English. That may be just due to a few individuals like myself or it may be because there is more of a translation tradition in the Irish language.  Where I worked for most of my working life, An Gúm, hundreds of books were translated since its foundation. Some of them just popular classics really but others of quite important literary value, including works by German writers, Thomas Mann and lighter stuff by Erich Kästner. Believe it or not, Kästner’s Emil und die Detektive has been translated twice into Irish and in one version a detective is ‘bleachtaire’ and in the other it is ‘lorgaire’.
 
In my home environment my father was a medical doctor but had literary leanings. His novella Paradies der Armen was well regarded, for a while, and we had German  writers calling to our house in Kilfinane, Böll and Hagelstange among them.The house was full of books. Working most of my life in An Gúm where there was a strong translation tradition, which really isn’t there anymore and more is the pity, it was natural once I had honed translation skills there, albeit working on children’s literature and school texts, and honed some editorial skills, it was natural to put these skills to work after I had retired from An Gúm.

I’m a prolific translator and may be one of a handful of people who recognizes and claims that there is no real substantial difference between personal creative work and literary translation. I think it is often more or less of the same quality, it springs from the same creative source. In other words it is not something mechanical I do, it’s an essential part of my  creative, intellectual and spiritual life and suits my chameleon nature and my Whitmanesque understanding of the human being as ‘containing multitudes’. 

I’ve worked with my friend and colleague Hans-Christian Oeser on a wide-ranging series of modern German poetry translated into Irish and English and I think apart maybe from Hilda Domin and the Iranian poet who writes in German, Said, I can’t say that my heart was enraptured by all of the material we were working on. A lot of modern poetry, in all European languages, apart from some of the lesser known languages such as Estonian, has gone astray. I don’t think it speaks to people anymore. My Irish volumes by Estonian poet Kristiina Ehin and Macedonian poet Nikola Madzirov are of far more interest to me, as poetry, than quite a lot of the German volumes. No names mentioned!

A lot of modern German poetry is self-reflexive, heavily intellectualised, it no longer speaks from the heart, no longer sings from one heart to another. So really, a lot of it is quite tortuous. Torture might be a better word because for a poet and a literary translator,  a poem is throbbingly alive, and to see a poetic tradition atrophy is a terrible thing.

It is far too early to say anything about contemporary German poetry but I think 90% of it won’t last whereas when I look to some of the eastern European poets that I have translated, I can sense purer wellsprings of poetry there and a deeper music than I find in a lot of German poetry today. Put bluntly, Kristiina and Nikola are magicians. Why has the magic gone out of much German poetry today?

It is important to be critical on this matter and to find out some of the reasons for this. Why is Estonian poetry – and the poetry of Kristiina Ehin in particular – in a superior vein to a lot of contemporary German poetry? I knew her father. Met him in Köln. Translated some of his surreal haiku into Irish. When he died, Kristiina published an elegy in the Estonian literary newsletter, ELM, which would knock you over! I jest not! Knock you over it would. Where does that magical power come from? From a shamanic tradition of course. She is a poet who lived as a nature warden for a number of months on an island. Alone. I can think of a lot of poets who wouldn’t last a week.
     
One of the reasons why magic has gone from a lot of modern German poetry is because after two World Wars the notion of ‘national’, ‘natural’ wellsprings for poetry was something disdained by the modern German intellectual. With good reason. Folk songs and romping in the early-morning dew were frowned upon as being suspiciously linked to Blut-und-Boden  literature.

On my first trip to Germany, to my father’s part of the world, Schleswig-Holstein, as a teenager, I enjoyed a few beers with lads of my own age. I tried to impress them one evening with a few songs I had learned at school, Im frühtau zu berge wir gehen fallera. They looked at me aghast. You see, they had been listening to AFN (American Forces Network in Germany) and all they wanted was Ray Charles. I love Ray Charles myself but why is it an either or situation, I asked myself. So I sang ‘Take these chains from my heart’ and I was a hero again but I wondered what chains were forming around the hearts of these young  Schleswig-Holsteiners, the magical casements that were closed to them. I court controversy with talk of magic but Irish is not yet a politically correct language and anybody with a Dinneen can open up his dictionary and see words such as iomas gréine: a sun-bubble caused on herbs which if eaten gives the gift of poetry. What would happen if we distributed such bubbles free of charge in the financial centres of Frankfurt, Dublin and New York? 
 
 A magical connection with nature and folk arts? This notion was abused by the Nazis and the Hitler Youth, so out goes the baby with the bathwater. Now the Estonians would never dream of throwing all of that stuff out, their magical connections with landscape and with nature and with song and dance and with music. The Germans did it and poetry has suffered because of that. Slowly but surely a generation has arisen that says we are no longer going to take the shame and the blame because of what our grandfathers did. We have to shake this off. We have to renew our roots in a common humanity, never forgetting the horrors of war and of genocide, but nevertheless returning to some wellsprings of real connectivity with the life of the planet, the forests and hills, the mountain streams and the early dew, the frühtau, blindly rejected by a whole generation. I’m not talking Eichendorff here (whom I love) or a return to Romanticism. Connectivity to the wellsprings of poetry. Yes and to race and history, and memory, and language, even if people want to forget. How can you?
 
 Haiku can teach us to reconnect with the earth and with the seasons, with the heavens, with natural elements, air, water, fire, earth – and poetry that is disconnected from such wellsprings becomes dry-throated and painful.

Even Irish-language poetry today is showing signs of damage, the type of damage done to Tara, the rape of the temenos. Some of our Irish-language poetry is now showing signs of etiolation,  infected by the artificiality of modern life which we have allowed to dominate our lives. Depersonalisation is becoming a problem in Irish society, is it not? I wrote a controversial essay in which I said poetry in Irish is going astray. A lot of what I said was a bit over the top, phrased to create a bit of controversy, a debate, a discussion about where poetry in Irish was at the moment. The anticipated debate didn’t happen. Did people shy away from it? Was there a lazy consensus about contemporary Irish-language poetry which universities, in particular, did not want to examine very closely? I got a lot of interesting e-mails and private correspondence in reply to that controversial essay which convinced me that there is a debate that’s worth opening up. Who will kick the can down the road again, a little more vigorously this time? It probably won’t happen. One advantage that Germany has over us is demographic. A critic in München can say what he feels about some poet or novelist in Berlin or Frankfurt, knowing that he’s not going to bump into said scribe on his way to the theatre. Not so here. A critic can’t open his mouth because his wife is related, by marriage, to the scribe’s godfather or some such inhibiting factor.

Back to German poetry: the next trilingual volume, German/Irish/English from Hans-Christian Oeser and myself will be poems by Martin Walser, taken from prose diaries. And, ‘here we go again,’ as Ray Charles sang: cynicism, despair, anguish, neurosis, intellectualism . . . do poets not realise that they are killing off poetry? Do they not wonder why readers have deserted them en masse?

Trakl and Heim were two poets that my father liked and I enjoyed translating them into Irish. Walser? Hmm… I don’t know… Sometimes one decides to do an Irish-language translation of a body of work, not necessarily because one likes it. It might in fact be quite the opposite. One might want to explore something that is completely outside of one’s own realm, one’s own experience, and try to get under the skin of that other creative life. Every poem you translate has certain qualities, ‘nutrients’  that are going to enrich your own poetic imagination, your use of language, your ear, so that some day in the future a phrase will occur, a pause, a word, a theme or colouring will occur, something you might not have possessed without having translated this body of work. Trakl or Huchel or whoever, it is the whole life of a man or woman in many respects, condensed into these thoughtful words or passionate words, the joys, the sufferings, the experiences, the disappointments, the boredom, the ecstasy. Everything that that person has seen and heard and felt goes into a well-formed, well-made poem and when you translate it, what happens? You take all that experience or at least you absorb the substance of it and it’s something alive and spiritual and even physical. It is sound. It is vibrational. There’s something mysteriously alive in a real poem and you take that life and it’s a responsibility, a sacred responsibility, to handle that life, and to give it as it were another life on the page, in another language. Translator as midwife. By so doing, you are also enriching your own imaginative and spiritual life in immeasurable ways. So that’s why it is worth doing. And I do it every day now. I am tweeting a haiku a day and blogging poems that I like, making almost instantaneous translations from sites such as Poetry Chaikhana: Sacred Poetry from Around the World, usually using English as a bridge language, sometimes looking at originals, when I can find them, such as the medieval German of Mechthild von Magdeburg. There’s a transcendent joy in instantaneous translation, as in instantaneous composition of haiku: it happens so fast that it doesn’t pass through the interpretative faculties, as Barnhill puts it. Where these little dandelion seeds will land, who knows, but in this digital age they could land anywhere and that’s interesting in the sense that one feels that one is no longer writing in complete isolation, even in a minority language with very few readers, very very few readers. But in a digital age you don’t know where these little dandelion seeds are going to travel on cosmic cyber-winds. They could land anywhere, in New Mexico for instance, or in Berlin.

I have one selection of my own poems translated by Hans-Christian Oeser into German: Ein Archivar großer Taten

 I wish a lot more was happening in outward translation. I’d love to see more work coming out of Irish and into the world. Not just myself, of course, but my contemporaries Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, Liam Ó Muirthile, Colm Breathnach, Biddy Jenkinson, Paddy Bushe and so on. They and many others – and those are just some of the poets –  have created a serious body of work that needs to be translated into the languages of Europe and beyond. It’s sad to see how little is being done in this regard. It’s a form of criminal negligence if the truth be told.

  A lot of Irish-language translation if it is going to reach a wider audience worldwide must first be translated into English as a bridge language and then let them work in Korean, or Mongolian or Slovakian or Latvian or whatever from the bridge language; but we haven’t enough translations into English, not to mind other languages and it’s important to have a large corpus of contemporary and classical Irish language literature available in English so that others can translate it into other languages. And I know that a lot of people think that you shouldn’t use a bridge language, you should just translate from Irish into Korean or whatever it is but that’s nonsense. If you are a good literary translator you will be able to do a very good job on a novel or a book of poems by using a bridge language. I have read people like Kadare, the great Albanian novelist, in English via a French translation. I don’t know of the existence of any Albanian work of his in English translation so French as a bridge language into English has been very satisfactory for me as a reader.

Your aim as a translator is to provide a rounded literary or reading experience for the reader. Now I’ll give you an example. Recently I have translated poems by a Hindi poet Rati Saxena, obviously not from the Hindi, into Irish. I’ve got a lot of very interesting blurbs by different critics and writers and reviewers and poets themselves on this particular book, which is going to be published in the next few months, and these were people who had read the Irish-language versions only. They hadn’t read the English cribs. The poems in English were often no more than cribs. They weren’t really great poems in the form that I got them. I had to recreate them, a bit like reconstructive surgery. I had to dig a bit to find the poetry, excavate. I found it. I know how to find it if it’s there. I have fulfilled my task if I have created poems that are interesting enough for people to sit down and write blurbs which say that these poems are provocative or that they raise questions about whatever the poems raise questions about – maybe women’s rights in India or that kind of thing or other poems of a more philosophical nature. One could find a very long continuous stream of thought and feeling in her work which you don’t find in a lot of poems from Europe where traditions have been broken, as I alluded to earlier on. So we’re back to the west-east diwan again!

In all the translations that I have done, my hope is that I have made something out of these texts that can be read with interest and even with joy because, ultimately, I am not interested very much in reading things simply out of interest or in translating things out of interest. Interest? No, joy! There must be joy. Joy is the factor. Joy is one of the essential ingredients which infuses true creativity and joy is missing from a lot of modern poetry, for reasons we needn’t analyse now but we have alluded to some of them. Without joy there is no true creation. There’s no point in sharpening your pencil or opening your computer without joy. We’re not doing it for the money! The money doesn’t even cover your costs. The act of translating and the act of creating, the act of writing is an ode to joy. 

Or why get up in the morning?

2013-07-15

Haiku le Issa ón mbliain 1808

níl aois ag teacht
ar an bhfiliméala ach oiread -
poitín sléibhe
Ní poitín a luaitear sa bhunhaiku ar ndóigh ach fíon ríse nó 'sake'.
An traslitriú Gaeilge a thugtar ar 'sake' ná 'sáicí' - ach an dtuigfeadh éinne é sin? Sláinte! Fan óg!


    .鶯もとしのよらぬや山の酒
    uguisu mo toshi no yoranu ya yama no sake

2013-07-14

Missa Krishnamurphy

Is ait an bheirt iad Derek Ball agus Gabriel Rosenstock gan aon agó. Níl a fhios ag éinne cathain a casadh ar a chéile ar dtús iad. 'Ba é an tráth úd é,' arsa Derek, 'nuair a casadh na cnoic ar a
chéile, measaim.'
Ar aon chuma, tá ceol curtha ag Derek le hAifreann Krishnamurphy. Téacs beannaithe. Téacs damanta.Is deacair a rá.
Beidh an chéad léiriú domhanda den Aifreann seo ag Féile Nua-Cheoil Bhaile na gCros, Co. na hIarmhí, Dé Sathairn, 20 Iúil, agus an t-amhránaí mór le rá Liz Hilliard i bpáirt an Bhansagairt.
Derek Ball and Gabriel Rosenstock have been at it again. Don't miss 'Aifreann Krishnamurphy' (Krishnamurphy Mass) at the Hilltown New Music Festival in Castlepollard, Co Westmeath on Saturday 20th July.
Hilltown is one of the most surprising and stimulating experiences you could possibly have in several lifetimes, and the Aifreann promises both comic and cosmic treats, standing up, sitting down, enlightenment, and much more.
The great Liz Hilliard is your Priestess for this unmissable occasion.

Tuilleadh eolais: www.hilltown.ie

Tá an Leabhar Aifrinn ar fáil anseo/ The Missal can be found here:

2013-07-13

An Damhsa Misteach le Mechthild von Magdeburg

So sprichet si:
«Ich mag nit tanzen, herre, du enleitest mich.
Wilt du, das ich sere springe, so muost du selber vor ansingen;
so springe ich in die minne,
von der minne in die bekantnisse,
von der bekantnisse in die gebruchunge,
von der gebruchunge úber alle moenschliche sinne.
Da wil ich bliben und wil doch fúrbas crisen.»

Labhair an t-anam:

Ní fhéadfainn rince
gan treoir uaitse, a Thiarna.
Más mian leat go bpreabfainnse le gliondar
ní mór duitse an duan a rá.
Lingfead ansin sa tsearc
as searc go heolas
as eolas go sult
is as sult lastall de mhothú an duine.
Is ann a fhanfaidh mé, ag faoileáil liom níos airde fós. 

Da spricht sie [die Seele]
Ich kann nicht tanzen, Herr
Wenn du mich nicht führst
Soll ich sehr springen
so muss Du selber vorsingen
Dann springe ich in die Minne
Vor der Minne in die Erkenntnis
Von der Erkenntnis in den Genuss
Vom Genuss über alle Menschliche Sinne
Dort will ich bleiben und doch  höher kreisen
 Foinse: Mystik als Anteilnahme am Geschick Gottes.
              Jüdische und christliche Erkundungen
              Prof. Dr. William J. Hoye

2013-07-12

Haiku le Issa ón mbliain 1819

an chéad chith i mbliana
díon ceann tuí
is an braon anuas

Ní dóigh liom gur ag tabhairt amach atá sé sa haiku seo. Is maith a thuigfeadh Issa an meon a bhí coitianta i measc ár muintire féin, 'Toil Dé go ndéantar'.

    .御盛りや草の庵ももりはじめ
    osagari ya kusa no iori mo mori hajime


Bailc gheimhridh, scéal eile a bheadh ansin, ar ndóigh. Ní hé go mbeadh trua aige dó féin, ach bheadh an-trua aige d'éinne a mbéarfadh báisteach fhuar an gheimhridh air. Haiku gleoite, ní fios bliain a chumtha, é seo:

báisteach gheimhridh -
an chearc bhocht
ag bacadaíl léi

2013-07-11

Guthanna síoraí


La Bamba

  

Tar is damhsaímis la bamba
Tar is damhsaímis la bamba
Is beidh gá againn le greann ina orlaí tríd
An greann an greann ina orlaí tríd, duitse agus domsa
Níos gasta is níos gasta
Níos gasta is níos gasta
Is leatsa mé
Is leatsa mé
Ní haon mhairnéalach mise
Ní haon mhairnéalach mise
Is captaen mé
Is captaen mé
Is captaen mé…

2013-07-10

Haiku le Issa ón mbliain 1805

fuacht na maidine
féachann súile na buaife, leis,
ar nós sásair

Tá an bhuaf bhocht bolgshúileach de dheasca an fhuachta, na súile ina bhfochupáin! Is cosúil go bhfuil Issa, leis, curtha amach ag an bhfuacht sa haiku sin.


    .朝寒や蟾も眼を皿にして
    asa-zamu ya hiki mo manako wo sara ni shite

       Féach air seo agus foghlaim conas an haiku is cáiliúla ar fad a fhuaimniú sa tSeapáinis:

2013-07-09

Norb Blei: Haiku

seven years now,
hanging from a nail in the barn
my father's cap and coat
seacht mbliana
ar crochadh de thairne sa scioból
caidhp is cóta m'athar
NORB BLEI (1935-2013)
(Published in tinywords, 2 October, 2006)

2013-07-08

Is sneachta mé

Is sneachta mé
aistríonn an ghrian go huisce mé
Is uisce mé
aistrímse síolta go plandaí
is planda mé
aistrímse bláthanna go torthaí
is toradh mé
aistríonn mo thuismitheoirí go beatha mé
is beatha mé
aistríonn an tseanaois go bás mé
is bás mé
aistríonn an geimhreadh go sneachta mé
is sneachta mé
aistríonn an ghrian go huisce mé

2013-07-07

Dhá dhán le Cathal Ó Searcaigh (English versions Gabriel Rosenstock)

BENFEITA, AN PHORTAINGÉIL

Anseo tá mé faoi gheasa ag an tsolas ghlé
a thig chugainn ó ardaibh gorma na spéire
chomh grástúil, dea-chumtha le haingeal ón tseanré.

Suíonn sé seal ar dhronn dearg na ndíonta
go dtí go bhfaigheann sé a anáil ar ais
i ndiaidh a thriallta fada thar achar na gcianta.

Go ciúin tumann sé san abhainn, a cholainn ríoga
ag spréacharnaigh roimhe agus ina dhiaidh;
niamhraíonn sé an t-uisce lena ghéaga diaga.

Déanann sé croí isteach le seantithe aoldaite na háite,
á gcuachadh is á muirniú sa chruth
go dtig gnaoi na gile i ngach gnúis a bhí breoite.

Spréann sé a thíolacthaí fáis go fial is go flaithiúil
i measc na n-ológ, na gcaora fíniúna, na bplumaí.
Cuireann sé luisne ghréine i gcneas na ngairdíní cúil.

Le teacht na hoíche cuachann sé suas i mbaclainn ghlas
na gcrann agus téann a chodladh go sochmaí,
bogcheol na bhfeithidí á thionlacan go deas.

Eisean mo chumann is mo ghrá geal, mo leannán aerga,
a thógann mo chroí le gach timpeallú gréine,
iontaoibh agam as a ghné, as a mhéin mhaorga.

Is beidh cumhaidh orm ina dhiaidh is mé ag scaradh leis go deo,
eisean a chlúdaigh mé go dlúth le laetha geala a ghrá
óir tá sé daite domh pilleadh abhaile ar bhailte beaga dorcha an cheo

 

BENFEITA, PORTUGAL

Here the brightness of sunlight commands me
streaming down from the blue hillocks of the sky –
the grace and shapeliness of angels from an age gone by.

It sits awhile on humpy red roofs
until it catches its breath once more
after its long journey to earth’s shore.

It quietly dips in the river, its regal body –
glistening all over – sings,
and the waters are beatified by its limbs.

It befriends the old lime-washed houses,
nestling among them with an embrace –
see now the vigour where once was a sickly face.

All of its bountiful gifts it spreads evenly, generously,
among olives, grapes and plums; all the while
back gardens are wreathed in a heavenly smile.

When night falls it curls up in the green lap
of trees and slumbers peacefully alone
nodding off to a gentle insect drone.

My love for ever, my fairy wooer
capturing my heart in gold and green
how I trust each glowing atom, your stately mien.

And oh how I shall miss you when I go –
for with honey I have been kissed –
bound once more for the foggy isle of mist!


NA BAILTE BÁNAITHE

(Do Eoin Mac Lochlainn)


Tráthnóna idir an dá sholas
tchím iad ag taibhsiú chugam
as ceo folaigh na nglúnta.

Mo sheanathair, muintir
mo mhuintire, tchím iad
ag obair amuigh faoin spéir,

Na fir ag buain i gcuibhrinn
nach bhfuil ann níos mó,
na mná ag blí na mbó

I mbuaile gréine na Míne
na páistí ag déanamh folachán
i measc stucaí agus síogán.

Fad m’amhairc uaim
tchím slua dea-bheo na marbh
ag tionól ar na seanfhóid

I mbailte beaga bánaithe
na mbunchnoc, i Mín na bPoll,
i bProchlais, i Mín na gCopóg.

Glúin ar ghlúin, amharc súl
de dhaoine ag siúl go réidh
as Mín m’aislinge, gach glúin i gcré.

Cumaidh orthu i ndiaidh na háite
a ghnáthaigh siad, na bailte seo
ar chaith siad a ré leo.

A gcoiscéim chomh ciúin
leis an oíche ag titim
is iad ar a mbealach ’na bhaile,

Cuing rúin orthu choíche
i ndiaidh na réigiúin a shiúl
ó Mhín na mBeo go Mín na Marbh

Deserted Townlands

(for Eoin Mac Lochlainn)


Evening between two lights
they loom before me
out of the mist that veils generations.

My grandfather, my people’s
people, I see them
toiling beneath the sky,

Men reaping in fields of oats
that have long since vanished,
women milking cows

In the sunny booley of Mín
children play hide-and-go-seek
among stooks and sheaves.

As far as the eye can see
the goodly living dead
have all gathered on the old sod,

In the small deserted townlands
of the foothills, in Mín na bPoll,
in Prochlais, in Mín na gCopóg.

Generation after generation, as many
as fill the eye solemnly stride
out of a visionary Mín, and all in the grave.

They pine for old haunts
these townlands
where, day in day out, they toiled.

As quiet as night descending
their footfall
wending their way home

bound to secrecy forever
having wandered the pastures
of the living and the dead.

2013-07-05

Van Morrison: Mil na mBeach


Mil na mBeach

Tóg a bhfuil acu de thae sa tSín
Cuir isteach é i mála páipéir
Seol ansin thar na farraigí
Caith isteach ansin é san aigéan
Ó is milse í ná mil na mbeach
Mil órga na mbeach bhfiain
Ó is milse í ná mil na mbeach
Ó is aingeal í, dar fia.

Níl aon stop linn ar bhóthar na saoirse
Níl aon bhac orainn ná ar ár bhfís
Tá na saoithe ar an mbóthar
Cead an bhealaigh ag na ridirí
Ó is milse í ná mil na mbeach
Mil órga na mbeach bhfiain
Ó is milse í ná mil na mbeach
Ó is aingeal í, dar fia.

Níl aon stop linn ar bhóthar na saoirse
Níl aon bhac orainn ná ar ár bhfís
Tá na saoithe ar an mbóthar
Tá cead an bhealaigh ag na ridirí
Ó is milse í ná mil na mbeach
Mil órga na mbeach bhfiain
Ó is milse í ná mil na mbeach
Ó is aingeal í, dar fia.

Is tá sí thar barr
Tá sí thar barr dar fia
Thar barr, yé, tá’s agat is aingeal í.

Tóg a bhfuil acu de thae sa tSín
Cuir isteach é i mála páipéir
Seol ansin thar na farraigí
Caith isteach ansin é i gceartlár an aigéin
Mar sea is milse í ná mil na mbeach
Mil órga na mbeach bhfiain
Ó is milse í ná mil na mbeach
Ó is aingeal í, dar fia.

Ó is milse í ná mil na mbeach
Mil órga na mbeach bhfiain
Ó is milse í ná mil na mbeach
Ó is aingeal í, aingeal, dar fia.

Sí mo bháb dheas í, tá sí thar barr …
Van Morrison: Tupelo Honey

2013-07-04

Van Morrison: Ré-Dhamhsa


Ré-Dhamhsa

Bhuel, saroíche do ré-dhamhsa, a stóirín,
Is na réaltaí in airde id shúil’,
Oíche ana oiriúnach do phóigín
Agus neartaíonn na spéartha mo dhúil.
Féach ag titim na duilleoga órga
Is na leoithní ag séideadh go sámh
Is mé ag éisteacht led chroí istigh leoga
Ceol aoibhinn a chorraíonn mé, a bháb
Is draíocht seo na hoíche ag labhairt linn faoi rún
Is solas na gealaí ar do ghrua ag lonrú.


Ré-dhamhsa amháin eile, leatsa, a stóirín-ó
Ré-dhamhsa amháin eile leatsa, a stoirín-ó

Bhuel, beidh an bheirt againn le chéile anocht
Ag suirí leatsa go breacadh lae
Tá mo ghrá sa go daingean go docht
Is tú mo chreideamh agus mo chré
Is le do theacht beidh mo chroí ag feitheamh
Is leat féin ní bheidh tusa go deo
Is tú m’aisling is is tú mo chinniúint
Beidh tú liom fad atá mise beo

Nuair a leagaimse méar ort bíonn gach cuid díot ar crith
Agus tá mise uaitse seachas neach ar bith

[Cúrfá]

[Céad Véarsa arís]

Ré-Dhamhsa eile leatsa faoin ngealaigh
Oíche lán de dhraíocht
Lá la lá ó faoin ngealaigh
Oíche lán de dhraíocht
Damhsa amháin eile leatsa, a stóirín …

Van Morrison: Moondance

2013-07-03

Van Morrison: Ar Aistear Imram


Ar Aistear Imram

Roimh an ghaoth a saolaíodh sinn
Sea, níos óige ná an ghrian
Sular sheol an bád ar toinn agus sinn ar aistear imram.
Éist, na loingseoirí ag éamh,
Goirt an mhuir is gorm an spéir
Lig do d’anam dul i gcéin ar aistear imram

Is séid, a bhonnáin cheo, is fillfead ar an ród,
Is séid, a bhonnáin cheo, is séid im chluasa
Ní bheidh mise buartha

Racálfaidh mé d’anam, a ghiofóg
Mar a dheineamarna beirt fadó
Is go hollásach beimid ar snámh ar aistear imram.

Is séid is séid, a bhonnáin cheo, is fillfead ar an ród
Is séid is séid, a bhonnáin cheo, is séid im chluasa
Ní bheidh mise buartha

Racálfaidh mé d’anam, a ghiofóg
Mar a dheineamarna beirt fadó
Le chéile is sinn ar snámh ar aistear imram
Seo, a stór

Ní tráth moille é…
Van Morrison: Into the Mystic

2013-07-02

Van Morrison: I mo chónaí ar an tairseach



I mo chónaí ar an tairseach 

I mo chónaí ar an tairseach
I mo sheasamh os do chomhair
Is tá gach aon ní an-dorcha
Is ní fhanfaidh mé níos mó.

Agus bhí mo shaol gan aisling
Duine eile mé i gcéin
Ní mór tochailt tríd an íomhá
Is aithne a chur orm féin.

I mo chónaí ar an tairseach
I mo sheasamh os do chomhair
Is tá gach aon ní an-dorcha
Is ní fhanfaidh mé níos mó.

Braith an t-aingeal ‘tá id láthair
Insan lasair-chriostal geal
Ardaigh mé is scrios an scáil
Lig dom bheith in airde seal.

I mo chónaí ar an tairseach
Is na breo-chairn ar gach taobh
Lig dom dul síos ’dtí an t-uisce
Is na seachmaill ’dul fé.

I mo chónaí ar an tairseach
I mo sheasamh os do chomhair
Is tá gach aon ní an-dorcha
Is ní fhanfaidh mé níos mó.

Táim chun éisteacht leis an siansa ar
A dtugtar ceol na sféar
Ardaigh mé is scrios an scáil
Is an oíche lonrach géar.

Agus siúlfad as an duifean
Agus beidh an solas ann
Agus canfad laoi na laoithe
Agus beidh an oíche fann


I mo chónaí ar an tairseach
I mo sheasamh os do chomhair
Is tá gach aon ní an-dorcha
Is ní fhanfaidh mé níos mó.

I mo chónaí ar an tairseach
Is na breo-chairn ar gach taobh
Lig dom dul síos ’dtí an t-uisce
Is na seachmaill ’dul fé.

I mo chónaí ar an tairseach
I mo sheasamh os do chomhair
Is tá gach aon ní an-dorcha
Is ní fhanfaidh mé níos mó.

I mo chónaí ar an tairseach
’Chónaí ar an tairseach
I mo chónaí ar an tairseach
I mo chónaí ar an tairseach

Van Morrison, Dweller on the Threshold

2013-07-01

Mandela

Grianghraf: Miotóga dornálaíochta Nelson Mandela sa Mhúsaem Cinedheighilte,
Johannesburg, An Afraic Theas

Agus lá breá éigin
ní bheidh gá le troid níos mó:
an leon is an t-uan le chéile
faoi shuaimhneas is faoi shó
And a day will come
when all fighting will cease:
the lion and the lamb together
in comfort and in peace

Van Morrison: taobh na gréin’ den ród


Ó thaobh dorcha na sráid’
Go dtí taobh na gréin’ den ród
Inar leannáin dúinn arís ach bheith
Taobh na gréin’ den ród.


Is, a thaisce gabh i leith
Agus iompair cuid dem bhrón
Ó thaobh dorcha na sráid’
Go dtí taobh na gréin’ den ród.

Tugtar an bheatha dúinn
Is ní heol dúinn, a stór, cén fáth,
Is imíonn an t-am ar eite
Is imíonn an saol mar lá.

An gcabhrófá le m’amhrán
Bainimis sult as mar is cóir
Ó thaobh dorcha na sráid’
Go dtí taobh na gréin’ den ród.


Ó thaobh dorcha na sráid’
Go dtí taobh na gréin’ den ród
Inár leannáin dúinn arís
Is sinn taobh na gréin’ den ród.

Inár leannáin dúinn arís is sinn taobh na gréin’ den ród.
Van Morrison, Bright Side of the Road