aonghas macneacail

A land that never

this is the land that never was
and its forest of cities with their
glass palaces where money is
woven into money that feeds the poor,
and towers, lithe as masts, from which
see - between grey mountains at ease
with the high footsteps of deer and
travellers, and the salmon-rich stream
(accessible to all) - tidy meadows
submerged in fruit, herbs and grain

this is the land where the army is
ploughing, where the ocean itself is
a ferry for every refugee without hope,
and you pick up your neighbour’s language
with fluent ease, where poets present
the daily news reports, on truth’s
wide screen, while the accountants
spread their purses out like meadows
on which grow the vessels of plenty -
with ho-ro and ho-ro, that’ll be the day

but a poet can’t deny the scene - a
world’s tears, when the news is
in his mouth like bitter filberts, and
the foolish ears of hope hear, under
the words, a choice, a road out from
stories of blazing horizons to fields where
the sun’s breath opens blooms of peace,
where a mind, blindly defiant, weaves
between green stalks, to read the perils
between an egg of new thought and flight

dùthaich nach robh riamh
translated into English by the author

just in case you fancy it here's a scots translation of the above. it's not how we speaknow but it's nearer than english