From The Loneliness of the Sasquatch, transcreated by Amanda Bell from the Irish of Gabriel Rosenstock. Alba Publishing, 2018

appearing out of mist

as from a dream
strange creatures

the sasquatch rubs her eyes

will they flee
on seeing me

these swans

*

one morning an eagle
appears in the sky
casting light

casting light
stippling dark
across the mountains
down to the glens

an eagle
casting light

*

wolves
bears
humans
other terrors

all dissipate
in the roar
of the waterfall

*

lean on me
she whispers to a tree,
sensing
it’s about to fall –
lean on me

*

clouds bleed
earth darkens

the sasquatch bleeds too
seals the wound with cobwebs
how does she know to do so?

light leaches from the sky
memory fading

*

a bird flits across the moon

for an instant
she thinks she’s becoming
bird
human
god

looks down at heavy sasquatch feet

*

the first time she sees fences –
not knowing
what they are

*

in autumn
the river runs gold

she has seen this before
knows the world is an illusion –
that nothing lasts

her footprints vanish
her breath too
there will be no trace of her at all

yesterday’s heron?
his reflection spirited away
by ripples

*
watching a cloud
transform to a white owl
the sasquatch yearns to be something other –
other than a shadow
on a barren hillside

Literary translation can be thought of as transposing a work of art into another cultural context rather than trying to replicate the original in the target language. This and other topics are discussed in an interview between the translator, and writer, Amanda Bell and the author, and translator, Gabriel Rosenstock:
Email interview between Amanda Bell and Gabriel Rosenstock, July 2018.

The book is available to order from info@albapubishing.com.