Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill
The Race
Like a mad lion, like a wild bull, like one
of the crazy pigs in the Fenian cycle
or the hero leaping upon the giant
with his fringe of swinging silk,
I drive at high speed through
the small midland towns of Ireland,
catching up with the wind ahead
while the wind behind me whirls and dies.
Like a shaft from a bow, like a shot from a gun
or a sparrow-hawk in a sparrow-throng
on a March day, I scatter the road signs,
miles or kilometres what do I care.
Nenagh, Roscrea, Mountmellick,
I pass through them in a daze;
they are only speed limits put there
to hold me up on my way to you.
Through mountain cleft, bogland and wet pasture
I race impetuously from west to east—
a headlong flight in your direction,
a quick dash to be with you.
The road rises and falls before me,
the surface changing from grit to tar;
I forget geography, all I know
is the screech of brakes and the gleam of lights.
Suddenly, in the mirror, I catch sight of the sun
glowing red behind me on the horizon,
a vast blazing crimson sphere like the heart
of the Great Cow or the Smith-God
when she was milked through a sieve,
the blood dripping as in a holy picture.
Thrice red, it is so fierce it pierces
my own heart, and I catch my breath in pain.
I keep glancing anxiously at the dripping sun
while trying to watch the road ahead.
So Sleeping Beauty must have glanced
at her finger after the spindle
of the spinning-wheel had pricked her,
turning it round and round as if in a trance.
When Deirdre saw the calf's blood on the snow
did it ever dawn on her what the raven was?
Oh, I know it's to you that I'm driving,
my lovely man, the friend of my heart,
and the only things between us tonight
are the road-sign and the traffic-light;
but your impatience is like a stone
dropping upon us out of the sky;
and add to that our bad humour,
gaucherie, and the weight of my terrible pride.
Another great weight is descending upon us
if things turn out as predicted, a weight
greater by far than the globe of the sun
that bled in my mirror a while back;
and thou, dark mother, cave of wonders,
since it's to you that we spin on our violent course,
is it true what they say that your kiss is sweeter
than Spanish wine, Greek honey, or the golden mead of the Norse?
--Irish; trans. Derek Mahon
Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Irish, trans. Derek Mahon, Pharaoh's Daughter, Wake Forest University Press, 1990.