You know, my mind went completely blank when confronted with this assignment. I chewed on it and chewed, and then I thought of this poem. I like to put a poem on the blog every so often, and this one says it all:

I place my hope on the water
in this little boat
of the language, the way a body might put
an infant

in a basket of intertwined
iris leaves,
its underside proofed
with bitumen and pitch,

then set the whole thing down amidst
the sedge
and bulrushes by the edge
of a river

only to have it borne hither and thither,
not knowing where it might end up;
in the lap, perhaps,
of some Pharaoh’s daughter.

(Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill Ceist Na Teangan/The Language Issue, trans. Paul Muldoon)

For the image of the Milky Way, click here.

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