More Nuala

Here's what I promised last time: Michael Harnett's translation of "Geasa," which I like better than McGuckian's:

Taboos

If I put my hand on holy ground
if I built a river bridge
all built by day by craftsmen
is felled on me by morning.

Up the river a nocturnal boat:
a woman stands in it,
candles alight in her eyes, her hands.
She has two oars.

She takes out a pack of cards.
She asks: "Will you play forfeits?"
We play. She wins each game
and sets me this problem, this forfeit, this load:

never to eat two meals in one house
never to stay two nights under one roof
never to sleep twice in one bed --
until I have found her again. I asked her where she'd be.

"If it's east I am, it's west, if it's west I am, it's east."
Off with her in lightning flashes
and I am left on the bank.
The two candles still light by my side.
She left me the two oars.

(Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Selected Poems / Rogha Dánta)


(A couple of other bilingual editions of her poetry are The Water Horse and Pharoah's Daughter.)