StormThoughts

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

For me these words are so incredibly resonant with meaning, how often I visit and revisit certain places, here in Ireland mostly, places that are significant with meaning, each visit brings new ideas and feelings and experiences and emotions to the fore.

Island People January 2007

High upon the side of the globe

We cling tenaciously

The North Atlantic has sent its fingers

To probe our innards

Leaving great serrations

But failing to dislodge us

Over time we have hunted and gathered

Gathered and hunted

Building stone walls on other occasions

Before we hid them in our soft underbelly of bog

All attempts to move us have failed

Plague famine emigration tried

Found wanting

Our neighbours transported us for good measure

We did not go quietly

We saw them off

Those who remained limpid like

To barren soil to mountain side

Grew in strength from deprivation

Experienced spiritual renewal

Asserted freedom

At the time of writing

We are poor again

Lost in the sloshing miry swamp of wealth

We want for storm and sea

To wash over us cleanse us

Reduce us to humanity again

For now we are gods of our own making

Leaving the land behind

Climbing to the realms of virtual reality

Heady with success

But for all that

We are an island people

Our boats upturned at present

Want new tarring

And a clean clear sea

One of my favourite poems is, ” The Four Quartets” by TS Eliot

“In my beginning is my end, in succession
houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended
are removed, destroyed restored, or in their place
is an open field or a factory or a bypass.
Old stone to new Building,…..”
East  Coker.

One of my own poems from a hike along the Old Kenmare Road in Kerry in the company of others

The Old Kenmare Road

In the strange noon time of travel
Ghosts of old coaches groan
Shadows of Finn and Fianna
Drift by the windy gap
Reminders of old hostilities
Streams gurgle trip and fall
Over rock and under sod
Frothy yellowed by bog

The high peaks in cloud
The soft rain reigning
Over all – slush and slosh
Time quivers with memory
Heroes thunder on
The coachman lingers
Axles creak and moan

For a moment
The breath of passing people
Is felt from times first second here
On and on the road reaches
By fern and birch
Holly hazel purple heather
Foxglove and fuschia

Wild and wetting the wind
Delivering spores of water
Drifting across the vision
Old shapes shift
Rocks lift here
Bend into obstinate form

Here is oak king of the forest
Aged rich timber
Where thought invades
Space closes to a private moment

I thrive in the pure
Sensual fine rain of day