Topic: Uttering Her Name

[nichi]

I carved a wind-harp

Dar Óma
out of aged cherry-wood
I carved a wind-harp
and placed it far
from the eyes
and ears of men
a hawk watches over it

no fingers touch
its delicate strings
the breeze it is
that plays the tune
breeze of morning
breeze of night
warm breeze from the south

throughout the day
it sings but You

wordlessly
effortlessly

never the same tune



Gabriel Rosenstock





Gabriel Rosenstock is the author/translator of over 100 books, including 12 volumes of poetry in Irish and a number of volumes of bilingual haiku. A member of Aosdana, the Irish Academy of Arts and Letters, he has given readings in Europe, the US, India, Australia and Japan. He has translated into Irish the selected poems of, among others, Francisco X. Alarcon, S. Heaney, G. Grass, W M Roggeman, Said, M. Augustin, P. Huchel, G. Trakl, G. Heym, H. Schertenleib and his Irish-language versions of haiku masters Issa, Buson, Shiki, Santoka and others are much loved in his native country.

The selections form Uttering Her Name are addressed to Dar Óma, a Celtic goddess, daughter of OGHMA who gave the gift of writing to the Celts. The communication to Dar Óma at times seems addressed an impersonal God and, at others, to someone immediate, felt, touched. Gabriel Rosenstock describes the work as neo-bhakti and, indeed, it has a strong feel of some of the great bhakti poetry, like that of Mirabai.

[nichi]

why was the veil rent


Dar Óma
why was the veil rent
why did I ever see Your face
what madness
does my purpose hold

I bleed in my core

at least a stigmatist
has wounds to show

dark One, quickly,
send vultures


Gabriel Rosenstock

[nichi]

the herring gull repeatedly lifts a crab


Dar Óma
the herring gull
repeatedly lifts a crab
carries it aloft
and drops it
on rocks below
until it is satisfied
the shell is truly shattered

the meat devoured
not a scrap left behind

You take me ever higher
clawing air
I forget my fate
submitting to Your hunger


Gabriel Rosenstock

[nichi]

in a Transylvanian mud-bath


Dar Óma
in a Transylvanian mud-bath
I cover myself in black
oily ooze
Ganesh smiles
mud cakes in the sun
an elephant grey

I lift You with my tusks
like a log far into the forest

all my past
spread out
laid bare

I trample on it
what else to do

carefully I let You down
You stand
where no one has stood before

the ivory silence
as You recline



Gabriel Rosenstock

[tangerine dream]

These are definitely.....interesting.
I guess I'd say they touch the reader in a different way then I've experienced with Poetry before.

Thanks for sharing V, these are quite mysterious and intriguing.

[nichi]

Dar Óma
holding Your image before me
on a screen
increasing percentages
until You disintegrate
like some forgotten galaxy
calling You back again
a retrieval
a respite from senseless oblivion

I know that stars are born
only to die
we see the light
of heavenly bodies
long since gone

this also I know:
Your light shines in me
the universe holds no terror


Gabriel Rosenstock

[nichi]

Dar Óma
I have written a symphony for You
You should hear it
You probably never will
I'm having fierce trouble
with the orchestra

the triangle player
reminds me
rather sternly
that there are only three sides
to a triangle

the lead violinist shrieks
<you have notes here
that do not exist!>

I blush and stammer
<well, do the best you can ...>
 
<what do you mean softly?>
complains the cymbalist
<cymbals clash and that is that!>

oh, I don't know,
I fear it may never be heard
unless I perform it all on my own


Gabriel Rosenstock

[nichi]

Dar Óma
I dreamt
I’d been to the ends of the earth
not to seek You
to avoid You
armed with talismans
I drew a circle with white chalk
a protection against Your smile
an inner circle with red chalk
against Your mouth
I gibbered in lost languages
the air was thick
with cabalistic formulae
then I heard You singing
shape-shifting
I became whiskered rat
You looked away
when You looked again
I was barn-owl
descending on rat
then I flew
for a day and a night
and came to a dark place
an even darker time
that time and place
before we met


Gabriel Rosenstock

[nichi]

Dar Óma
I went to my excellent physician
author of Addiction Replacement Therapy
he put me on heroin
and monitored my progress steadily
<is your need for Her
greater than your craving for the drug?>
I nodded, sagely

he put me on LSD
<what do you see?>
<blazing yellow harvest moons
orbiting one another
their beams are peacock feathers
showering on crab-apple trees
in the Isle of the Blest
their taste is dry>
<you don’t see Her at all?>
<who else am I describing?>
the doctor is perplexed
the universe perplexed


GR

[nichi]

Dar Óma
let me find You in a meadow
in that tart herb
we ate as children
sour sally we called it
find You in simple days
when hens roamed freely
scratching the earth

from elderberries I squeezed ink
imagining poems
I’d dedicate to You

I first discovered You
in a hen’s egg
round    warm

I thought aloud:
the world could be like this
as it is now

Cloud Woman       was there ever a time
I did not hear You
promising to return
Star Woman invoked a million times
Long Grass Woman were You not always present
when I played and hid from enemies
Earth Woman that opens up when I’m gone


GR

[nichi]

Dar Óma
You are not yet of my time
we do not eat together
sleep together
rise together

I will get up three hundred hours earlier
make toast in the middle of the night
smother it with honey

the moon will look in the window
curiously

out on the street
an urban fox
scavenging

his tail catching
the first light of dawn



Gabriel Rosenstock
Uttering her name

[nichi]

Dar Óma
snake unwinding
from a lightning-blasted tree
I’ve spotted You
why should I flee?
I am already deep in Your eyes
come
take all of me
mercifully
let me assist You
here’s my head firmly in Your jaws
do not use Your fangs
to stun me
let me live
this death in You now
inch by slow inch


GR

[nichi]

Dar Óma
many deities
and higher beings were jostling –
readers over my shoulder
waiting to hear
the next utterance
each in his and her own way
prompting me
helping me to find
a word-entrance
rhythm-entrance to Your heart
it was a veritable Babel I can tell You

in the end
I banished them to lonely towers
on high

composed and gathered in silence
with one finger
I typed out Your name


GR

[nichi]

Dar Óma
I prepare to close this book a while
and leave it on the table
near some flowers
as I plan some other route
to Your being

the road so far was long
but seemed to only last a day
part of the night

You were my staff of hazel
my guide and companion
there was pain not seeing You
pain seeing You
I will read the lives of explorers
adventurers
imitate their courage and guile
faced by storms, pirates,
drought, deluge
unmapped territories
the knowledge that one is lost

I will go to sea as a Bedouin

GR

[nichi]

Dar Óma
I could cut myself off
from the world of men
but not of crows
I cannot recall a time
not being of the crow nation

the way they fly alone
and assemble
their silence
 a disused well

in the distance
near at hand –
that’s me
the one that’s left behind

brazen in the morning
they rule evening time
painting their shadows on roofs

they hide
practise ventriloquism
expose tail feathers
say <here I am>

I try not to eavesdrop
on their intimate conversations
but am drawn in

Crow -  You see -
battle cry, lullaby, lament,
subtleties of grammar, nuance,
Crow is my first language


GR