A Poem by / Cerdd gan Ruth Sharman

Translated by  / Cyfieithwyd gan Siân Melangell Dafydd 

Stink bug

Not stink exactly, more the smell of paper spotted with age – the way the pages of a book can pull you in, connecting to some memory that’s hard to place – because this little insect, when I lift it, gently, off the arm of my chair, releases something nutty and sweet, like creosote or marzipan or pear, and this time I get it – a whiff of that long-ago garden where I’m turning over stones, peering under leaves, hair in my eyes, sun on the back of my head, scratched and stung but too busy to notice or care.

Drewbryf

Sydd ddim yn drewi’n union, debycach i arogl papur smotiog gan oed – fel mae tudalennau llyfr yn gallu tynnu rhywun i mewn, cysylltu â rhyw o frith gof anodd ei gofio’n glir gan fod y pryfyn bach, pan godaf o’n ysgafn oddi ar fraich o fy nghadair, yn rhyddhau rhywbeth o oglau cnau melys fel creosote neu farsipán neu gellyg, a’r tro hwn dwi’n dal peth ohonno – chwiw o ryw ardd erstalwm lle dwi’n troi cerrig drosodd, yn syllu o dan ddail, gwallt yn fy llygaid, haul ar gefn fy mhen, wedi fy nghrafu, wedi fy mhigo ond yn rhy brysur i sylwi na phoeni.

Ruth Sharman is the author of Birth of the Owl Butterflies (Picador) and Scarlet Tiger (Templar’s Straid Collection Award, 2016). In 2019, she received a Society of Authors Foundation Grant to revisit South India – where she was born – and produce the poems for her third collection, Rain Tree (Templar, 2022).