"galician" poems
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 morriña, Romanian dor.
May 20, 2017
May 20, 2017 at 6:51 PM UTC
Dear Don Alberto
Flamboyant Octogenarian
To a pair of weather-beaten families on the Camino
And to Backpacker Bridget from Granada via Barnsley
And to all who seek shelter from the Galician downpours
You sound
Like an Angel
As you hold aloft your otherworldly radio
And play for us Tina Turner’s
Simply the Best
On happy repeat.
Dear Don Alberto
With your doggy entourage
To a bunch of Ryanair Refugees on the Camino
And to uber cool Bridget naturalised Granadina don’t mention Barnsley
And to all who seek sanctuary from the Galician heatwaves
You taste
Like a rustic slice of empanada
Rich deep and
Eternally replenishing itself.
You weren’t ever on our map
Don Alberto, were you?
The ID cards you offer up for inspection
Make us laugh at the farce of our controls and borders.
And so
To us make-shift pilgrims on the Camino
You show us how to journey properly
Dancing the salsa
On every roundabout.
Simon Piesse
Jun 20, 2022
Jun 20, 2022 at 12:58 PM UTC
My last grandmother’s heartbreak
was caused by an accordion,
his husband played it so well
he must have sold his soul to the devil.
When my father gave it to buy new coats for winter
she cried for the memories and lost years,
the widow of a man who was still alive
only continents away.
He said his soul costed a fortune
but one that could keep his children’s stomachs full.
So he played all night long
in the streets of Switzerland,
over much colder pebbles than our damp Galician fields
without knowing if he will ever return,
but that hunger and poverty was the worst war of all.
Now I know my homeland is a grandmother
I am sure,
she has seen all her lovers emigrate
to a fertile land, a richer paradise.
She could not bear fast enough,
so her children scattered away
and died like Icarus,
burned and buried
by their killers in the plain.
Our country has made us weary of leaving,
that is why most of us stay
in a place that hasn’t been able to stop mourning.
How can one leave this ancestral sacrifice,
the beautiful language
of a quiet Sunday morning,
and the piles of leaves always gathered at your doorstep
ready for you to play with them.
A place that weeps for months
for those lost at sea,
it wasn’t the lighthouse fault,
they were meant to return,
only not to us.
There is no forgetting for us,
who still keep the instruments locked away.
Maybe that is why we learn to use our voices,
but here, it’s like screaming over the noise of the oceans,
here, it's not loud enough,
maybe it never will.
We’ll choke with the blood of our sore throats
and swollen tongues still not used to
the language who killed our grandfathers in the cornfields.
We will die repeating the same sung history,
like our grandmothers before us.
Apr 12, 2019
Apr 12, 2019 at 12:15 PM UTC