BRITISH HORIZONS: CAROLINE GILL

DAYDREAMING AT CLOUDS HILL
                 ‘they may act their dream with open eyes’ 
                                                        T. E.  Lawrence
Herodotus would say
‘Why worry?’ when the night
becomes the dawn of day,

and seven sheets of grey
waft in to cloud our sight.
Time-shifting sands will stray,

and desert eyes will know
that wisdom brings delight:
care calls on us to stay

like camels in the snow.
Those pillars soar in height  
and line the sage’s way:

full moons will come and go.
‘Why worry?’ when the day
becomes the dead of night,
Herodotus would say.
© Caroline Gill          
First published in Voice & Verse.
The words, ‘Why worry?’, refer to a phrase in Greek attributed to Herodotus, which Lawrence of Arabia carved above the door at his Clouds Hill home.

     PROFIL CULTURAL   

     Gill lives in Wales, UK, in a home overlooking the sea in the home town of the poet Dylan Thomas. Caroline lives with her husband David, an archaeologist. She won her first poetry prize at the age of eleven for a poem entitled Koala Bear. Caroline is particularly interested in writing about wildlife, landscape and heritage. She won First Prize in the general section of the international Petra Kenney Poetry Competition in 2007 and served as Representative in Wales for the competition from 2008-2009. Caroline has had over a hundred poems published in anthologies and small press magazines in Europe, the USA and India. One of her poems, Preseli Blue, was featured on the BBC programme Poetry Please, in 2008.

     Caroline Gill trăieşte în Regatul Unit, într-o casă cu vederea spre mare, în oraşul natal al poetului Dylan Thomas. Ea convieţuieşte alături de soţul ei David, de profesie arheolog. Primul premiu literar  l-a câştigat la vârsta de unsprezece ani pentru un poem intitulat Ursul Koala. Caroline este în mod special interesată să scrie despre viaţa în sălbăticie, natură şi tradiţii. A obţinut premiul întâi la Concursul Internaţional de Poezie „Petra Kenney”, reprezentând Ţara Galilor la ediţia din 2008-2009 a concursului. Caroline Gill a publicat peste o sută de poeme în antologii şi reviste din Europa, Statele Unite şi India. Una dintre poeziile sale, Albastru de Preseli a fost difuzată în 2008 la BBC în cadrul programului Poetry Please. Acum poeta galeză se prezintă şi în faţa iubitorilor de poezie din România.

     Traducere de Alina-Olimpia Miron
     Universitatea din Bucureşti