Irish Mass and Note on Two Cities

Irish Mass

I know only agus,

discern no other words.

Apostle's creed, according

to a phone. Words I never

learned, in other tongues––

Nepali, Urdu, Catalan––

at every translator's reading

we read originals, even if no

one else knew the words.

On Inis Mór a reticent

hiker will hear little Irish, will

instead look at empty homes, some

abandoned, others clearly meant for

guests, not residents. The boy

in front of me angered me, cultural

experience, he said. Well, yes, but

who gives a solitary fuck? You don't

speak their language, don't

know them. Two salesman, with one

I spoke of Maine, another warned

my friend of drought. And a driver

told us about the erratics the glaciers

left behind. In the wall of the clochan

a lump of pink granite stands out against

the karst, incongruous. Outsider

deposited by accident

of ice. We had no reason

to come here, left knowing

little, the sky grey when we came

and when we went. I looked back

remembering a Jewish poet's

poem from my first workshop,

it goes like this, but not

in English: I don't know I don't know

I don't know . . .

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