Yesterday

 

YESTERDAY

 

In the morning I ate peanut-buttered toast

and worked on a poem

called Bad Night’s Sleep

 

In the afternoon I washed the bird droppings

from the car and vowed never

to park it under that tree again

 

In the evening I watched Peatai

the Irish language programme

about pets and vets

 

And marvelled that I still remembered

the cúpla focail as Gaeilge

and vowed to take it up again

 

But at the moment I’m struggling with Deutsch

 that inflected language and its shifting goalposts

when it comes to articles and adjectives

 

Determined by Gender and Number and Case

unlike the Romance languages like French & Co

which call a halt after the first two categories

 

That nominative, vocative, accusative et al saga

that may ring a school bell

if you happened to study Latin

 

And I’m just hoping that Gaeilge

if I ever do take it up again

has Romantic Case roots…

Copyrigth 2022 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved