The Language Issue

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 bulrushes by the edge
of a river

only to have it hither and thither,
not knowing where it might end up;
in the lap, perhaps,
of some Pharaoh's daughter.


Translated from the Irish by Medbh McGuckian From PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER (Wake Forest University Press, 1998)