Matt Mooney - I Ask Myself

What’s that?
That sound from the wood!
Does that bare tree complain a lot?
It does not!
It cannot be.
Is it the call of a bird?
It might maybe.

But high on its boughs
I can’t see a thing:
Not a sign I see.

I listen in, all ears,
And found out now
That the sound
That had puzzled me
Came after all
From the tall old ash tree,
Creaking in pain,
In vain to complain
Of the way that the wind
Blows to bow and to bend it.


A reminder to me
That the suffering of man
Sounds so much the same
In everything but name.

(My own translation of my poem in Gaelic 'Ceist Agam Orm'.)

Matt Mooney

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-ask-myself-5/