She was the joy of my youth (Elegy)

She was the joy of my youth
by Michael R. Burch

. . . qui laetificat juventutem meam . . .
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
. . . requiescat in pace . . .
May she rest in peace.
. . . amen . . .
Amen.

NOTE: I was touched by this Latin prayer, which I discovered in a novel that I read as a teenager. I decided to incorporate it into a poem, which I started in high school and revised as an adult. This was my first translation. From what I now understand, “ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam” means “to the God who gives joy to my youth” but I am sticking with my original interpretation: a lament for a little girl at her funeral. Keywords/Tags: Latin, translation, elegy, eulogy, epitaph, lament, prayer, hymn, joy, sorrow, bereavement, requiescat, pace, rest, peace, amen, death, funeral, grave, youth, young, girl, daughter, father, loss, lost

Of Seabound Saints and Promised Lands
by Michael R. Burch

Judas sat on a wretched rock,
his head still sore from Satan’s gnawing.
Then Saint Brendan’s curragh caught his eye,
wildly geeing and hawing.

"I’m on parole from Hell today!"
Pale Judas cried from his lonely perch.
"You’ve fasted forty days, good Saint!
Let this rock by my church,
my baptismal, these icy waves.
O, plead for me now with the One who saves!"

Saint Brendan, full of mercy, stood
at the lurching prow of his flimsy bark,
and mightily prayed for the mangy man
whose flesh flashed pale and stark
in that golden moment, beneath a sun
that seemed to halo his tonsured dome.
Then Saint Brendan sailed for the Promised Land
and Saint Judas headed Home.

O, behoove yourself, if ever your can,
of the fervent prayer of a righteous man!

In Dante’s "Inferno" Satan gnaws on Judas Iscariot’s head. A curragh is a boat fashioned from wood and ox hides. Saint Brendan of Ireland is the patron saint of sailors and whales. According to legend, he sailed in search of the Promised Land and discovered America centuries before Columbus.

Our English Rose

by Michael R. Burch

for Christine Ena Burch

The rose is:

the ornament of the earth,

the glory of nature,

the archetype of the flowers,

the blush of the meadows,

a lightning flash of beauty.

This is my loose translation/interpretation of a Sappho epigram.

Hugh MacDiarmid wrote "The Watergaw" in a Scots dialect. I have translated the poem into modern English to make it easier to read and understand. A watergaw is a fragmentary rainbow. 

The Watergaw
by Hugh MacDiarmid
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

One wet forenight in the sheep-shearing season
I saw the uncanniest thing:
a watergaw with its wavering light
shining beyond the wild downpour of rain ...
and I thought of the last wild look that you gave
when you knew you were destined for the grave.

There was no light in the skylark's nest
that night -- no -- nor any in mine;
but now often I've thought of that foolish light
and of these more foolish hearts of men ...
and I think that maybe at last I ken
what your look meant then.

Keywords/Tags: Scotland, Scot, Scottish, Scots dialect, night, nightfall, rain, grave, death, death of a friend, light, lights, watergaw, heart, heartache, broken heart, heart song