Tusa
Le tusa, pé thú féin,
an fíréan
a thabharfadh cluais le héisteacht,
b’fhéidir, do bhean inste scéil
a thug na cosa léi, ar éigean,
ó láthair an chatha.
Níor thugamair féin an samhradh linn
ná an geimhreadh.
Níor thriallamair ar bord loinge
go Meiriceá ná ag lorg ár bhfortúin
le chéile i slí ar bith
ins na tíortha teo thar lear.
Níor ghaibheamair de bharr na gcnoc
ar chapall láidir álainn dubh.
Níor luíomair faoi chrann caorthainn
is an oíche ag cur cuisne.
Ní lú ná mar a bhí tinte cnámh
is an adharc á séideadh ar thaobh na gréine.
Eadrainn bhí an fharraige mhór
atá brónach. Eadrainn
bhí na cnoic is na sléibhte
ná casann ar a chéile.
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
You Are
Whoever you are, you are
The real thing, the witness
Who might lend an ear
To a woman with a story
Barely escaped with her life
From the place of battle.
Spring, the sweet spring, was not sweet for us
Nor winter neither.
We never stepped aboard a ship together
Bound for America to seek
Our fortune, we never
Shared those hot foreign lands.
We did not fly over the high hills
Riding the fine black stallion,
Or lie under the hazel branches
As the night froze about us,
No more than we lit bonfires of celebration
Or blew the horn on the mountainside.
Between us welled the ocean
Waves of grief. Between us
The mountains were forbidding
And the roads long, with no turning.
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
