i want to learn welsh

……just to be able to read this poem in the original:

What does it mean to be human?

by Waldo Williams

.

What is staying alive? To possess

A great hall inside of a cell.

What is it to know? The same root

Underneath the branches.

.

What is it to believe? Being a carer

Until relief takes over.

And to forgive? On fours through thorns

To keep company to an old enemy.

.

What is it to sing? To receive breath

From the genius of creation.

What’s work but humming a song

From wood and wheat.

.

What are state affairs? A craft

That’s still only crawling?

And armaments? Thrust a knife

In a baby’s fist.

.

Being a nation? What can it be? A gift

In the swell of the heart.

And to love a country? Keeping house

In a cloud of witnesses.

.

What’s the world to the all powerful?

A circle spinning.

And to the children of the earth?

A cradle rocking.

.

.

Translated from the Welsh by Menna Elfyn