I saw a thrush-corpse shriveling
on the woodland's scrabbly floor.
I was busy pitying it
when there came a harrying pack
of strays that set about me;
they bayed and snapped,
growling bare-toothed.
From my throat such roaring;
my every curse and foot-swing
made a bellow-war between us.
Fields of agitated cattle
augmented that wild choir.
Mice and shrewmice shrunk back
into the oakleaf brown interior
as a fox reared upward on a stony ridge,
its stance utterly rigid.
I remembered to run,
felt the four paws under me.

Translated from the Irish by Billy Ramsell