BY ANY OTHER NAME
( for the miracle that a Brian Ings is)
The kestrel hovers high
over the Devil's Mother.
It knows nothing
of the names
that humans
give to things.
Such as mountains.
Or indeed its good self.
It only knows the heights
that it can fly to
and how glorious a thing
the wind beneath a wing.
If it's gaze could penetrate
the gift of language
it would perceive
how time changes
mountains
and name-ings.
It watches words
mutate back into
the original
Irish.
So that the Devil's Mother
that it flies over today
was once
the Demon's Testicles.
"Magairlí an Deamhain!"
it screeches the name
through the dense fog
of Anglicisation or Bastardisation.
Or God forgive us!
The virus of Religion.
And it would croak
with laughter
at its own nomenclature
"*** Dearg" or Red *****.
It is thankful for this moment
of human sentience
so that it can laugh
at itself
as a Red ***** flying
over the Demon's Testicles.
But in an instant
the instant is gone.
And it is only this
miracle of being
the beauty of its flight
in the midst of a gale.
"*** dearg ag eitilt thall
magairlí an deamhan!"
it chuckles in Kestrel
before translating itself
back into
the English
"A kestrel flying over
the Demon's Testicles!"
Ballypitmave in County Antrim would be known in Irish as Phite Méabha ‘townland of Maeve’s *****’. Or as the good old Revn Cupples would have it ‘town land of the pit of shame’
We are talking of a Goddess here or a figure of mighty myth so the Irish would not be afraid to call a ***** a ***** and all hail the Goddess.
