when we are damned

A little something from the Gaelic. I don't usually go in for imagery of nature girls frolicking in the surf and communing with the earth and that sort of thing, but there is something so eerie about this poem. Brrr.

We Are Damned, My Sisters
(Táimid Damanta, A Dheirféaracha)

We are damned, my sisters,
we who swam at night
on beaches, with the stars
laughing with us
phosphorescence about us
we shrieking with delight
with the coldness of the tide
without shifts or dresses
as innocent as infants.
We are damned, my sisters.
We are damned, my sisters,
we who accepted the priests' challenge
our kindred's challenge: who ate from destiny's dish
who have knowledge of good and evil
who are no longer concerned.
We spent nights in Eden's fields
eating apples, gooseberries; roses
behind our ears, singing songs
around the gipsy bon-fires
drinking and romping with sailors and robbers:
and so we are damned, my sisters.

We didn't darn stockings
we didn't comb or tease
we knew nothing of handmaidens
except the one in high Heaven.
We preferred to be shoeless by the tide
dancing singly on the wet sand
the piper's tune coming to us
on the kind Spring wind, than to be
indoors making strong tea for the men -
and so we're damned, my sisters.

Our eyes will go to the worms
our lips to the clawed crabs
and our livers will be given
as food to the parish dogs.
The hair will be torn from our heads
the flesh flayed from our bones.
They'll find apple seeds and gooseberry skins
in the remains of our vomit
when we are damned, my sisters.

--Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, tr. Michael Hartnett