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.