Faoistin an Fhile agus É Ina Dhéagóir
File agus Béarlóir
ag breathnú isteach i lionsa dorcha na todhchaí
a fhios aige ar chuma éigin go mbeadh air breathnú siar
sula ndéanfaí ilchruthach de
le bheith fá dheoidh ina fhile Gaeilge.
Ach cén fáth? Cén fáth sa diabhal a mbeadh éinne ina fhile Gaeilge?
Ní féidir teacht ar fhreagra cruinn ar an gceist sin.
Ní tusa a dhéanann ilchruthach díot féin.
Rud is ea é a tharlaíonn duit.
Lastall dár dtuiscint.
Cá bhfios cad a spreagann é?
Fuisce? Broc marbh ar bhóthar fliuch.
Bean siúil ag canadh The Croppy Boy:
Good men and true in this house who dwell,
To a stranger buachaill I pray you tell:
Is the priest at home, or may he be seen?
I would speak a word with Father Green.
Is ilchruthach é i gcónaí, ar ndóigh.
Níl leigheas aige air. Cá bhfios cad a spreagann é?
An teanga, dar leis féin.
Bhí an Béarla á choinneáil siar.
Á iompú ina chloch, ina charraig, ina shliabh gan aird
nach bpléascfadh go deo.
“Mo dhuine – an buachaill stróinséartha –
beidh sé á ilchruthú san uaigh féin . . .”
Confessions of a Teenage Poet
An Anglophone poet
looking into the dark lens of the future
knowing, somehow, that he must look back
before shape-shifting
and becoming a Gaelic poet, at last.
But why? Why the devil become a Gaelic poet?
No exact answer to that question can be arrived at.
Shape-shifting is not something you do.
It's something that happens.
Beyond your ken.
Who knows what triggers it?
Whiskey? A dead badger on a wet road.
An itinerant woman singing The Croppy Boy:
Good men and true in this house who dwell,
To a stranger buachaill* I pray you tell:
Is the priest at home, or may he be seen?
I would speak a word with Father Green.
He's still a shape-shifter, of course.
He can't help it. Who knows what triggers it?
Language, he expects.
English was holding him back.
Turning him into a stone, a rock, an indifferent mountain
that would never explode.
“That fella – the stranger buachaill –
he’ll be shape-shiftin’ in the grave itself . . .”