沃纳-格罗尔克（Vona Groarke）(1964- )是当代爱尔兰诗坛的领军人物

The lighthouse

 By Vona Groarke

I heard her tell the story another way,

She set it, not in the village, where

the parish priest was telling the crowd

about light in the darkness

and the dawn of a new age ------

she set it in the kitchen of their house,

with three women resting

and the day’s work done. She told it

so we would listen for the music

of the room when it was still:

the rustle of the fire in the grate;

the single held note of a teaspoon

from which the knitting needles took their cue;

the steady flutter of the carriage clock

that kept their breath in check.

One of them might sleep and her nodding glass

snag the firelight and scatter it

around the room to return in the more

familiar shine of cups on the dresser,

copper pans, her sister’s wedding-band.

In the village, a crowd of overcoated men

sent up a cheer for progress and prosperity

for all ….

And in the length of time

it took to turn a switch and to make light

of their house, three women saw themselves

stranded in a room that was nothing like

their own, with pockmarked walls

and ceilling stains, its cobweb and tis grime:

their house undone and silenced

by the clamour of new light.