Air Tràigh Bhostaidh
Air mo làimh chlì
tha tobhta;
air mo làimh dheis muir a’ gluasad.
Tha ’ghainmheach bhàn a’ sìneadh
fo mo leth-thaobh ’s mi air m’ uilinn
gu a crìch, thall
aig cluas na geodhaidh;
’s tha ’ghrian geal oirre
a’ cuir lasair an aghaidh nan gràinean—
aodainn a thàinig air uachdair
latha soilleir
eadar dhà shluaisneadh
’s a dh’fhiosraich boillsgeadh a dh’eachdraidh a’ bhaile.
Air mo chùlaibh tha leas;
fo thuim ghlasa, suainte
às a’ ghréin
tha na daoine ’nan eachdraidh.
Ann an aodann a leacan, ’na seasamh
am fianais na tobhta
’s na mara
tha saoghal ’s a bhial fodha—
eachdraidh a’ dol am fuar-mheas.
Translations of this Poem
On the Beach at Bosta
Translator: David Kinloch
An old house decomposes
to my left;
sea is travelling
to my right.
Pitched up on my elbow
I make a kind of cavern
for the crab-coloured sand. It skitters
away to the edge of the inlet
where the sun pins it white,
irradiating the grains’ faces—
faces which surfaced one day
between surges, gleamed and glanced
with the township’s history.
Behind me is a garden;
under fallow hillocks
tucked away from the sun
the people are in history.
Facing its stones,
within sight of the roofless house
and the sea,
a world swings into its antipodes,
and history turns over and over and over.
About this poem
This poem and the translation or ‘response’ were published in Dreuchd An Fhigheadair / The Weaver’s Task: a Gaelic Sampler, edited by Christopher Whyte, and published by the Scottish Poetry Library in 2007. Seven Scottish poets with no knowledge of Gaelic were offered literal versions of contemporary Gaelic poems. Their responses were published alongside the Gaelic originals in the book, and can also be read on the website collected under the tag: The Weaver’s Task.
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Dòmhnall MacAmhlaigh
Donald MacAulay
Donald MacAulay was a poet, scholar and linguist, whose distinguished academic career culminated in holding the Chair of Celtic at the University of Glasgow.Donald MacAulay
