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“Gwawnowwdat,” said Turnbull, “and take a good look

at the pain in a horse’s eyes.

If you’d a pair of dragging hooves on you, it’s short work

they’d make of the smile on your face.”

You could see that he understood, and his fellow-feeling

for the pain in the horse’s eyes;

and that dwelling on it so long he’d finally stolen

into the innermost space

of the horse’s pain that I saw, too, trying to plumb

the depths of pain that it felt;

until it was Turnbull’s eyes I saw starting out from

that suffering horse’s pelt.

I looked at Turnbull and saw set under his brow

as I looked him up and down twice

the two, too-big eyes that were speechless with sorrow:

the horse’s eyes.

Translated from the Irish

Notes:

Source: Poetry (November 2014)