Greg Hill : Cerddi a Throsiadau / Poems and Translations
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JSL


Translation of 'JSL' by R Williams-Parry

From your heights you came down to the grain on the floor
Blinding with your light all the chicks and the chicklings;
Creating above your head in the dovecot doors
The twitter and flutter one expects among pigeons.
O idios - O forsaken fool; fie for the shame
Of a great, unloved bird winging its lonely way;
Hatched in a different field's corner not the same
God as ours rules over - shaped from a different clay.
As for us, we drink wisdom with cups of tea
And learned talk in the afternoon peace together;
We've an ear for the classics and a sense of place and can't see
That parish pumps or prisoners' cells could endeavour
To intrude on our taking of toast in grave squares
Of a sick academy.  Relish your prisoner's fare.



(For a note on the background to this poem see my blog entry HERE)


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