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Full Moon
4 Jun 2023
Gabriel
Rosenstock
Silence
A bilingual tanka in Irish and English
in response to the Eugène Delacroix
painting Sunset (c.1850)
is mian leis an tost
a ollmhéid a roinnt linne
tarraingíonn sé siar
foirmítear siolla dúinn
ach imíonn sé ina phuth
~
silence longs to speak
of its own immensity
always drawing back
words formed in the deepest skies
dissolve before reaching us
Behind the poem...
I’ve been writing bilingual ekphrastic tanka for a number of years – many of these with a mystic flavour. This one is no exception. Eugène Delacroix’s painting Sunset brings back the profound silence and sense of mystery I experienced as a young boy in Ireland’s East Limerick, cloud-gazing in the place I grew up.