The Rock Heads

The Rock Heads & Mussenden Temple in the distance

The farm to which this poem relates is a mile to the West of the Mussenden Temple (main blog picture above) we called it  the Rock Heads.

They said you could see Scotland

On a clear day from the Rock Heads

I  saw a patchwork of fields

Where men and machines toiled  till dusk

And uncles told tales of the one that got away

Postscript by Seamus Heaney

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other

Our Deepest Fear RIP Nelson Mandela

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? 

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. 

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. 

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

She moved through the fair (another fine Ulster voice)

My young love said to me, my mother won´t mind 
And my father won´t slight you for your lack of kine, 
And she stepped away from me and this she did say, 
It will not be long love ´til our wedding day. 

She stepped away from me and she moved through the fair, 
And fondly I watched her move here and move there, 
Then she went her way homeward with one star awake, 
As the swan in the evening moves over the lake. 

The people were saying no two were e´er wed, 
But one has a sorrow that never was said, 
And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear, 
And that was the last that I saw of my dear. 

I dreamt it last night that my young love came in, 
So softly she entered her feet made no din, 
She came close beside me and this she did say, 
It will not be long love ´til our wedding day.

Unknown

Death of a President

22 November 1963

Friday evening, that time when
Tea was out and father was in
And the coal fire cracked
And the ash wood spat
And the flames danced
in the hearth of that living room.

Local boy does good

” He sets out to capture a lost moment in history; a hitherto forgotten time and place that most of us will never have experienced; a harsher time, yet a time afforded a seductive allure by evocatively wistful reminiscences."

Click here to see the review....

 Castledawson Poet 

Seamus Heaney 'from Field Work'

I love this one -  listen to it - on the podcast 'Fieldwork' ===========>

Where the sally tree went pale in every breeze
where the perfect eye of the nesting blackbird watched
where one fern was always green

I was standing watching you