Sneachta

le Máire Nic a’Daird

Nach deas í an tuath
lena cota bog ban
ina codladh go sáimh
sa sneachta geal glan.

Snow

by Máire Nic a’Daird

How lovely is the world
with its soft white coat,
sleeping snugly
in the bright, clean snow.

It’s not the first snow of the season–we had an icy shot across the bow a couple weeks ago that left a sleety, slushy mess on the roads for a few days–but this morning’s dusting has a nicer feel to it. The weather forecast calls for cold and colder temperatures, so perhaps this dusting will stick around for a while. I need to get the studded tires on my bicycle this weekend.

“Sneachta” by Máire Nic a’Daird was the first Irish poem I learned. It was in an early Irish lesson in the basement of the Irish Well, with the late and much-missed Sean T. Kelley, and I think it was meant to demonstrate that modifiers come after the noun in Irish–”cota bog ban” is “coat soft white,” “sneachta geal glan” is “snow bright clean”. But I remembered it because it has some lovely sounds packed into a little space: those “s” sounds and “b” sounds, all the broad vowels (“a”, “o”, “u” are broad in Irish, “i” and “e” are slender, with much import all around–Irish orthography is too big a topic to tackle this morning). It sounds like a quiet, softly-dusted winter morning to me.