GloPoWriMo 2018 - day five.

Today the prompt is take a poem not in English and imagine the translation describes a photograph.

"Calbharaigh

Chan eil mo shùil air Calbharaigh
no air Betlehem an àigh
ach air cùil ghrod an Glaschu
far bheil an lobhadh fàis,
agus air seòmar an Dùn Èideann,
seòmar bochdainn 's cràidh,
far a bheil an naoidhean creuchdach
ri aonagraich gu bhàs."

(Somhairle MacGill-Eain)

The photo is of the cairn at Hallaig in Raasey.

(I know a little of Gaelic, mostly from studying the poetry of Sorley MacLean, but only a very little.)

Calvary.

There is a modern Calvary, where man
Is sacrificed, not just from Bethlehem, but all
Men are depleted.
They move from their native earth, from the
Isles and the shoreline, from the trees
And the heather and the warmth
Of evening fire, to the rain-washed
Bare and naked streets of the big city,
To Glasgow and beyond, to serve not the
Goddess of the land, but the needs of
Money and capitalism.
This, then, is a modern Calvary.

GloPoWriMo 2017 - day twenty-nine

Today the prompt is to take a word from a favourite poem. I have taken 'deer' from 'Hallaig' by Sorley MacLean.


Deer.

The long-night, stag-bellowing, antler crashing
Of the deer on the hill
Is now, as it ever was, the
Ever-lasting fight for prize,
One boy against another,
Vying for the brightest marble or the shiniest conker,
Wanting to be top-dog in the playground.
The running hinds, taunting and calling the calves
On the hillside, hiding in
Fresh green-bracken, waving leaved troops,
Standing sentinel whilst the wind
And rain march past in order,
Giving way only to the sun's passing glance
As it watches and warms the hinds and the calves.
And the bellowing-stag-antler-locked
Crashing continues, day after day after year after year.
Thus it ever was.

(c) 2ndwitch, 29/04/17