Song of Myself #32 -- Walt Whitman (SLIOCHT)

D’fhéadfainn casadh measaim is cónaí i measc na

n-ainmhithe, chomh séimh is atáid iontu féin.

Seasaim is breathnaím orthu ar feadh i bhfad.

Ní bhíd ag bárcadh allais ná ag gearán faoin staid ina bhfuilid,

Ní fhanann ina luí sa dorchadas gan suan is a bpeacaí acu á gcaoineadh.

Ní chuireann siad masmas orm is iad ag caint faoina ndualgas i leith an Chruthaitheora,

Níl neach díobh míshásta ná mire mhaoine ag cur as dóibh,

Ní fheacann siad glúin roimh a chéile ná roimh neach a mhair na mílte bliain ó shin,

Níl neach díobh measúil ná gruama ar chlár na cruinne.

 ~ Walt Whitman ~

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

~ Walt Whitman ~

(Song of Myself, #32)

Ar an lá seo Márta 26

Ar an lá seo Márta 26, 1892, cailleadh Walt Whitman.

Dán ómóis dó scríofa ag Cathal Ó Searcaigh, mórfhile ag caint le mórfhile. Is féidir an bundán éachtach a léamh sa leabhar An tAm Marfach ina Mairimid (Arlen House 2010):

To Walt Whitman

for Adil Aouji

As usual, Walt, here I am reading your litany of joy as the grass makes an appearance in Mín a’ Leá.
A shower of rain spurting growth, your words bring the hues and urgency of spring flowing through my imagination.
I can hear your gentle laughter behind the words as I utter your love poems. You need but beckon: what I wouldn’t give to be in your arms. I’m not saying we are blood relations, but we are linked by craft and by leanings.
Brother, give me your hand, tramp of the road, and we will take words on a walk, with an agile leap of the mind, let’s take the air, you take the high road and I’ll take the low road and the poem between us.
Brother give me your hand. We’ll roam over the vast range of your contemplation and cross the mighty flood of your thought. Out there in the sunny booley of your hope, we’ll stretch our limbs awhile in comfort. Let’s take the luscious juices from the sun.
Out there in the purple evening of the hills, dear one, we’ll discover the America of our desires.

II

Poet of vision, poet of prophecy, green omniscient poet, your campfire illumines eternity.
Poetry for you had no boundaries. You were drawn to immensity.
You beheld the spirit’s playful spume in oceans, the spill of a boy’s seed on starstruck autumn nights.
Beloved god that needed no theology.
Poet of homage. Poet of streaming expansiveness. You honoured the great-hearted order of the cosmos. You could feel the living pulse that nurtured the blade of grass, that conducted the cycle of the spheres. Nothing was too big or too small for your canticle of creation.
You were at home in each limb of the dancing universe.
Your imagination took a seven-league leap from one world to the next. Your poem made safe the path to the abyss.
Your book is as humble as ditch grass, as ambitious as the swell of the sea.
It is my scripture of delight, gospel of joy, full-throated choir, book of wisdom.

III

Your company lifts my heart, Walt, as I run the gauntlet, as blows are struck. The mills of life grind rough and smooth.
Nor was your own life a bed of roses. You had your detractors in their hundreds. And like myself, the love of young men brought you down.
They bad-mouthed you, the evil-hearted ones, proclaiming your poems – your poems exuding grace – were nothing but line after line of vice and temptation.
But you never betrayed your own word. You, the kind-hearted one who couldn’t harm a midge, you gave it to them well and good in words of poetry. The wild scream that challenged them in hymns of love. The love that could not speak its name uttered itself in fountains of grace.
Poet all-powerful, caress me now in the sacred bosom of your words.
Protect me from evil detractors, the pigeon-hearted and the righteous, the scary whited sepulchures.
Protect me, Walt, from the gang that tried to take your name away from you. They and their kin are still creating mischief.
Free me from the daughters of treachery and the sons of trickery whose perverted ways have coated my tongue with their scum so that it is hard for me now to raise my voice in the bardic company where I belong.
Give me your gift, Walt, to give every word its true weight, and may every verb strike home so that the barkings of  malefactors are rammed back down their throats.

IV

I am reading your litany of delight as grass peeps out in Mín ’a Leá and you, brother, buried in Camden.
But your poem is hale and hearty, voice of spring rising in the green leaves of your humanity.
The world is full of exasperation and malice, and warring factions fill the earth and skies. Factions of faith, tribes of terror!
You saw more than enough of battle gore, Walt, as you nursed soldiers in their final throes, in the bloody years of civil war.
You were reminded, more than ever, as you carried out the corporal works of mercy, that our lot was useless unless we showed what it is to be good neighbours with everyone from Brooklyn to Ballybuddy.
A world of exasperation and malice, Walt, but inspired by your poem I look to the peeping grass; tender grass of brotherhood; rough grass of prophecy; ditch grass of integrity; fragrant grass of truth.
I read your litany of delight, a bad moon on the rise, the bones of the old world have become stale, a new age of misery about to be born. And yet, Walt, lovable brother, you forged a fire that brightens my life tonight. Even now, its glow is palpable.
Your book is the green sod on which I stand alone.

Machu Picchu

This is what you should do:

Love the earth and sun and animals,
despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants,
argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people...
re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book,
dismiss what insults your very soul,
and your flesh shall become a great poem.

~ Walt Whitman ~
( from Preface to 1855 edition, Leaves of Grass)

Is é seo is ceart duit a dhéanamh:

grá a thabhairt don domhan is don ghrian is do na hainmhithe,
drochmheas a bheith agat ar shaibhreas, déirc a thabhairt don té atá á lorg,
seasamh suas don té atá ainbhiosach is ar mire,
d’ioncam is do shaothar a thoirbhirt do dhaoine eile, fuath a bheith agat don tíoránach,
gan a bheith ag argóint mar gheall ar Dhia.
Bí foighneach le cách, lig dóibh …
athscrúdaigh gach a ndúradh leat ar scoil nó sa séipéal nó i leabhar ar bith,
caith uait an rud a mhaslaíonn thú i d’anam istigh,
agus déanfar ded fheoilse mórdhán.

Íomhá/ Image: Ron Rosenstock
Aistriúchan/Translation: Gabriel Rosenstock

Walt Whitman: Míorúiltí

Míorúiltí 

Dhéanfása scéal mór as míorúiltí ab ea?
Óm thaobhsa de, ní heol dom faic ach míorúiltí.
Pé acu an ag siúl sráideanna Mhanattan atáim
nó sracfhéachaint agam á tabhairt trasna na ndíonta i dtreo na spéire
nó mé ag lapadaíl cosnochta ar an gcladach díreach
 ar imeall an tsáile,
nó mé im sheasamh fé na crainn sna coillte
nó ag  comhrá le cara dil i rith an lae, nó luí sa leaba
le cara dil istoíche.
nó suí chun boird ag dinnéar leis an gcuid eile,
nó ag  breathnú ar stróinséirí os mo chomhair sa tram,
nó féachaint ar na beacha meala agus iad gnóthach timpeall na coirceoige
- athmhaidin samhraidh -
nó beithígh ag iníor sa ghort
nó éanlaith, nó iontas na bhfeithidí san aer
nó iontas luí na gréine, nó na réaltaí is iad ag lonrú
go séimh is go ciúin,
nó cuar caol tanaí gleoite fíneáilte na gealaí úire
san earrach . . .
tá gach aon orlach ciúbach den spás míorúilteach,
agus an rud céanna á leathadh ar fud gach slat chearnach
de dhromchla an domhain,
gach troigh den chroí tíre ag cur thar maoil mar an gcéanna.
Míorúilt leanúnach domsa is ea an mhuir
na héisc sa snámh - na carraigeacha - gluaiseacht na dtonn
- longa is na fearaibh iontu,
an bhfuil míorúiltí níos éachtaí ann ná iad?

Miracles

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge
of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with anyone I love, or sleep in the bed
at night with anyone I love,
Or sit at the table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honeybees busy around the hive
of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining
so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon
in spring . . .
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread
with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim-the rocks-the motion of the waves
-the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

    ~ Walt Whitman ~
    
    (Leaves of Grass)