Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam.
A country without a language
is a country without a soul,
and so, too, is the nation of my heart
speechless, vacant. In this desolate land
of barren photo albums and quiet holidays,
family history is a space-bound balloon
released from a toddler’s grip, steadily rising
beyond sight. All I can do is point skyward
when someone asks where I am from.
Gaeilge has no word for yes or no,
but answers questions through the verb.
I am Irish. I do not know what this meant
to my ancestors. I do yearn for answers,
trapped within the confines of a coffin
in some graveyard I would not know
how to visit. What I do know:
My parents cannot determine who to thank
for my auburn hair. Mother grieved
when I dyed it, fearing its permanent disappearance
since "you can’t get that color from a box."
I inherited my grandmother's green eyes.
She also infused her lineage, I like to add,
with soft hands, if such a thing can be hereditary.
Our interlocking became the table setting
of every meal, caressing my arm with a palm
as smooth as rocks on the underside of a river
after generations of flowing water have passed
through. Stranach, the sound I still hear
when I trace her handwriting on my tattooed wrist.
She once told me my (some number of great) grandfather
helped build America’s railroads after emigrating,
back when the landscape trembled
with newness. I wonder how it felt to lay the tracks
that connect a country, if among beads of sweat,
one glistened with awe. If he imagined the centuries
that would pass, a young lady on the other side
of them, riding the train to a world he cannot see
but is connected to by a fraction of DNA
and the spikes of the rails he hammered into place.
How we both would learn the strength required
to stand still, as the world moves on.
Dúiche: homeland, ancestral lands.
Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam: A country without language is a country without a soul (an Irish historical motto).
Gaeilge: Irish language, Irish Gaelic.
Stranach: the sound of water flowing or rushing, often used to describe the sound of waves on a beach.
BLAKE HARRSCH received the Graduate Creative Writing Award at the 2025 NJCEA Conference for her Creative Writing panel submission, which included the poem, “Dúiche, Another Name for Home.” Cash prize generously sponsored by the New Jersey College English Association.
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Harrsch, Blake. “Dúiche, Another Name for Home,” Watchung Review. New Jersey College Education Association. Coming 2026.
blake harrsch 