Ar an mbealach siar

eidh mé ag bogadh siar abhaile i gceann seachtaine, agus ag fágáil Caerdydd tar éis dom dhá bhliain go leith a chaitheamh ann. Tuilleadh faoi sin le teacht. Ach idir an dá linn, tharraing cara liom m'aird anocht ar an dán seo thíos le Bernard O'Donoghue - dán faoina smaointe féin agus é ag tiomáint tríd an Bhreatain Bheag agus ag filleadh i dtreo na hÉireann. Chuaigh sé go mór i bhfeidhm orm anocht agus mé ag ullmhú don turas siar. Go háirithe agus mé tar éis deireadh seachtaine a chaitheamh i dtuaisceart na tíre seo - ceantar atá ceithre huaire go leith ach na mílte míle ón bpríomhchathair - áit dhiamhair fhiáin - ar an imeall ach lárnach, dar liomsa, idir Éire agus an Albain.

Westering Home

Bernard O'Donoghue

Though you'd be pressed to say exactly where
 It first sets in, driving west through Wales
 Things start to feel like Ireland. It can't be
 The chapels with their clear grey windows,

Or the buzzards menacing the scooped valleys.
 In April, have the blurred blackthorn hedges
 Something to do with it? Or possibly
 The motorway, which seems to lose its nerve
 Mile by mile. The houses, up to a point,

With the masoned gables, each upper window
 A raised eyebrow. More, though, than all of this,
 It's the architecture of the spirit;
 The old thin ache you thought that you'd forgotten-

More smoke, admittedly than flame;
 Less tears than rain. And the whole business
 Neither here nor there, and therefore home.

From Neither Here nor There (London: Chatto and Windus, 1999)

With the kind permission of Bernard O'Donoghue.