Mary O’Malley’s poem is in an anthology of poems “A Different Eden: Ecopoetry from Ireland and Galicia”, in a section of the book called: “When we were not the centre of the universe”. I liked the poem, especially as it was read to me by Lorna Shaughnessy (see her latest collection of poems: “Lark Water”,…
Boundary Wall “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”. “He moves in darkness as it seems to me.” Robert Frost, Mending Wall. My neighbour calls to ask my time To inspect the wall That runs between his house and mine. I follow his bent back, Behind which tight-clasped, His hands are counter-weight It seems…
Song for Joe Nora had not been dead long when her cottagewas burned downHer net curtains at the small windows stillthe sacred heart of Jesus on the walllooking downThe charred reed fell but the walls stillwithstood the wind somewhatThe fireplace and the chimney tower remainedwith ash and beech growing from out the roofThe heart on…
Atlantic Depression (A riff on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18) “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?… Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” (Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare.) Hawthorns show white May buds just opening in our eyes we try the walk before the threatened gale you anxious to make photos with your phone…
Being the Bulb Planted in the Autumn Being the bulb planted in the Autumn inserting the planter cutting out the core of turf placing the small bulb in the pit of the dug out earth fill it in with the rotted compost mixed with leaf-mould and clay Treading it all in with my booted foot…
Bone People Bone People “E nga iwi o nga iwi” (O the people of the bones) Keri Hulme, “The Bone People” 1984 “proximity can create transformation”, Ocean Vuong. Flat on our backs we become aware of breath feeling the body parts that are touching the mat Heel pelvis…
William’s reply to my first blog with this title inspired me to say a little more about my approach to Yoga and Meditation. This is a very personal point of view and probably diverges from strict Yoga teachings. Meditation too, for me, has to be almost tailor made to the individual, as Sister Ishpriya says,…
More Than Imagining I Try To Be When I imagine the lakeand the fields and the treesand the murderous foxesand dead hensand the proud fatallywounded cockereland the snowdrops hiddenunder the Bay TreeI swim in the dead dry lakea fish now on dry stonethe walls of the smalldead-end roadsurrounding me walkingno hedgerows just rockand nettle roots…
1 In Tom Stoppard’s play of 1972, “Jumpers”, a major theme is the advance of materialism and the reduction of anything spiritual or theological (like God for example) to either nonsense, an aspect of sociology or of psychology. The university chapel has been turned into a gymnasium and, as George, the Professor of Moral Philosophy,…
Guelder-rose “No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.” Hopkins, “The Windhover” Here in the garden a circumference of five petalled flowers a pure white sterile corona and then within a hub of of micro flowers pollenous and fertile almost…
The Hug of Gaia 