Venice masks

Monday, 16 November 2020

The Language Issue - Núala Ní Dhomhnaill

I place my hope on the water
in this little boat
of the language, the way a body might put
an infant
in a basket of intertwined
iris leaves,
its underside proofed
with bitumen and pitch,

then set the whole thing down amidst
the sedge
and the bulrushes by the edge
of a river
only to have it borne hither and thither,
not knowing where it might end up;
in the lap, perhaps,
of some Pharaoh's daughter.

Núala Ní Dhomhnaill (born 1956) Ireland (born in England but moved to Ireland aged 6)
Translated by Paul Muldoon

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