(Vertaling / Translation) Katherine Duffy Visitors (Mounstewart, Co. Down) for Stella The house forbidden, we took to the gardens; we walked a Tarot landscape - trees, tall and dark, by a lake. I spoke of a dilemma, you of a new contentment, while the wind played the hand it was dealt by the trees. Before we knew it, winter, that old trickster, had slipped in; stood at the edge of the grass. You were unfazed. Everything, you said, was happening as it should; now worms would comb the soil while we of northern latitudes bask in firelight, unroll the older tales. Still shuffling futures, we crossed a wooden bridge, saw two swans veer away. From the stone steps of a turreted folly, we looked down on a private burial ground, Tír na nÓg* - the pool at its centre dry, stopped with a coppery swirl, of leaves, brittle memories of gorgeous fish - ornamental carp perhaps, live and elaborate as our own concerns, turning in the shallow dark. * literally ‘the Land of the Young’ a mythical place where time ceases to exist. © Katherine Duffy