National Poetry Day 2011

Popped into the Library, as I had heard there were postcards on offer. The theme this year is "Games".

Imagine my surprise when the first one I look at is in Polish. The words have a familiarity somehow, as I am just back from a visit to the country. However I can't translate a single word. (I will be filling the four gaps soon I promise.) I do like the "Skippin Sang" by J K Annand.

Ganek by Milosz translated :
The Porch
The porch whose doors face the west
Has large windows. The sun warms it well.
From here you can see north, south, east and west,
Forests and rivers, fields and tree-lined lanes.

When the oaks array themselves in green
And the linden's shade reaches the flower bed,
The world disappears behind the blue bark,
Engraved by leaves into motley patches.

Here, at a tiny table, brother and sister
Kneel, drawing scenes of battle and pursuit.
and with their pink tongues try to help
Great warships, one of which is sinking.

An t-Seann Chairt Againn by Angus Peter Campbell translated
Our Old Cart
She bore wonders -
endless sacks of dusty peat,
countless bags of oily wool,
stooks of hay and jagged corn,

fifteen squashed boys,
and one spectacular day
a sheared ram with a stray
gull dancing on its horns.

But the horse grew old
and was sold to a passing tinker,
so the brand-new Massey Ferguson
replaced the bridle's chinkle.

The cart
became our plaything. It sailed
to San Francisco, and part of it flew
to the moon, and that bit
which connects the axle to the wheel
became a pair of goal-posts which still stand
rusting in the relentless Uist wind.