Things I've never understood,
not the dynamo, not hate,
not the skill of a pinch that was good.
Or Christ - but for that it's too late.

The drool of a hairy goat's lip,
the warmth of piglets ‘neath an apple tree
that are well made from their father's rib
are enough to lie by for me

at night. But when I build stooks at morn
with my workmates at master's call,
what am I then, how do I stand there
suddenly booted, laced with knots,

a thinly branched bush of thorn
against a whitewashed wall,
like a Cretan I stand and stare
at glowing Whitsun polyglots.

Translated by Paul Vincent