MAE HIRAETH ARNA AMDANOT ( THERE'S LONELINESS ON ME FOR YOU )
Her shadow is laughing.
Her shadow is taller than a tree.
She is a key for which there is
no door
a Polaroid photograph dying in the sun
( fading into the nothing from which it comes ).
My mind slashes through time grasps this memory
of her clutches it to itself
until once again Death orders it to
. . .let go.
It...does so.
Her shadow laughing.
Her shadow taller than a tree.
*
Hiraeth, pronounced "here eyeth" is a Welsh word that has no direct English translation. It is defined it as homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire...a homesickness for a home you cannot return to, or that never was.
Hiraeth is best buddies with the Portuguese concept of saudade (a key theme in Fado music), Brazilian Portuguese banzo (more related to homesickness), Turkish gurbet, Galician morriΓ±a, Romanian dor.