so they would not see my gaping wounds

We went out walking in the night, 

    a woman and three men, 

the river babbling away to itself, 

    and though I did not understand the half of it 

I knew it was wholly in earnest—

    I knew there was no false note

in all that flow of talk,

    those waterwords clean and clear.

I was spouting my foolishness

    into the night without cease,

wearing a flippant mask,

    of words without worth,

false on the face of my soul;

    dazzling the two beside me

so they would not see my gaping wounds,

    would not hear me groaning.

But now that I walk alone,

    let my soul go bare and uncovered;

I will speak to myself

    as the river spoke, undeceiving,

when it rose a poem to the mountains

    in its own weight of water,

spurning the false music

    with its own clear voice.

 

[Seán Pádraig Ó Ríordáin {an Ríordánach} {1916-1977} 'Listen to the River Speak', translated from the Irish by Theo Dorgan, from Selected Poems]