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!"