It's possible

Some Irish are looking backwards these days.

I do allow myself to focus on nothing but a tiny monumental advice / gesture.

From the frontier of writing

The tightness and the nilness round that space
when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect
its make and number and, as one bends his face

towards your window, you catch sight of more
on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent
down cradled guns that hold you under cover

and everything is pure interrogation
until a rifle motions and you move
with guarded unconcerned acceleration-

a little emptier, a little spent
as always by that quiver in the self,
subjugated, yes, and obedient.

Eagle patrol, Co. Tyrone, July 1985

So you drive on to the frontier of writing
where it happens again. The guns on tripods;
the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating

data about you, waiting for the squawk
of clearance; the marksman training down
out of the sun upon you like a hawk.

And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed,
as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall
on the black current of a tarmac road

past armor-plated vehicles, out between
the posted soldiers flowing and receding
like tree shadows into the polished windscreen.

Seamus Heaney (* 13. April 1939)

Related:

In praise of ...

The spirit that always says Yes

Last week I tried to convince the spirit that would always negate to once do the weeding for me, filling the trailer with the branches and carry the whole lot up the hill to the Easter Fire, then bring the compost from the pile to the field and do the ploughing, but ... he shook his head; which are but some of the reasons why I would have been extremely busy with not blogging for a couple of days.

Oh well, and I fell in love.

Ah, what a beauty! A Royal Highness. A real Queen who graciously accepted my humble offer and moved in one of the luxury hotels I had built for her a week earlier - a hole in the ground, filled with pebbles and glass-wool and covered with an everted flowerpot -: a humble (sic) bee.

The other morning the Lady spake to me: "And what's about the nectarious life you promised me and my people, Sir Sean?"
"Give me a minute, darling", I said. And, blushing, I raised my arms and demanded: "Now, be it spring!"

And since there's a humming and buzzing, a droning and whirring in and around Seanhenge, and a blaze of colours that would fill anyone who has ears to hear, eyes to see and a nose to smell, with joy and happiness.

Would you agree?

Spring in Seanhenge

Cherry

Forsythia and wild red currant

Morello cherry

Magnolia

Happy 103rd, Sam

Words [Trying to sing, softly]:

Age is when to man
Huddled o'er the ingle
Shivering for the hag
To put the pen in the bed
And bring the toddy
She comes in the ashes
Who loved could not be won
Or won not loved
Or some other trouble
Comes in the ashes
Like in that cold light
The faces in the ashes
That old starlight
On the earth again.

[Long pause.]

From Words and Music
Written in English and completed towards the end of 1961.
First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on November 13th, 1962
Samuel Beckett (13 April 1906 - 22. December 1989)



Related:
Waiting for Sam

Pitch 'n' Putt with Joyce 'n' Beckett

Her voice his eyes

On the other side I had seen a little girl,
her right hand holding a man's left,
leading him towards the night,
her voice being his eyes.
The sun is red, she said, and soon
she will dive into the glistening sea.

Having eyes only for the man at her side
she had not taken notice of me,
and still I felt like an intruder.
Suddenly I sensed myself walking away,
and only the sun could see
my eyes burning with sorrow and joy.

Could you see through walls,
there's a girl holding a man's hand
her voice being his eyes.
© Sean Jeating

To ————

ONE word is often profaned!
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And Pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the heaven rejects not:
The desire of the moth for the star
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion for something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

To Harriet*****

WHOSE is the love that, gleaming through the world,
Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?
Whose is the warm and partial praise,
Virtue's most sweet reward?
Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul
Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?
Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
And loved mankind the more?

Harriet! on thine :—thou wert my purer mind;
Thou wert the Inspiration of my song;
Thine are these early wilding flowers,
Though garlanded by me.

Then press into thy breast this pledge of love,
And know, though time may change and years may roll,
Each flow'ret gathered in my heart
It consecrates to thine.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sa jeunesse

The Old-Fashioned Way

The Indian Serenade

I ARISE from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me - who knows how?
To thy chamber window, sweet.

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream -
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
Oh, beloved as thou art!

Oh lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white alas!
My heart beats loud and fast
Oh, I press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

100 Hours of Astronmy

Lucky who has an observatory in his neighbourhood, especially these days.
Those who haven't can let their eyes travelling around the clock via Internet.

http://www.100hoursofastronomy.org/

And here's, for a beginning, 'a bit more' about the International Year of Astronomy.
Well, actually it's quite a lot to discover. :)

Check around and enjoy.

Eyes travelling 30 million light years

'Clear' sky. So our astrophysicist yesterday went on sightseeing-tour. Today he sent an email ("colours will follow").

Galaxy NGC 3628

Rich Poetry at The Poor Mouth's

Who would not feel a great desire
to celebrate McGonagall & McIntyre?
There's a poetry slam right over here,
it's great fun though without beer.

So hurry soon over to Jams, please.
The winner might win a ton of cheese,
or even unlike Gordon Brown
get a statue in Edinburgh Town.



Bertus, et tu? :)