On Contemplating a Sheep’s Skull ~ Poem by: John Kinsella
All images taken in the Nier valley, county waterford
Fujifilm X100
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
On Contemplating a Sheep’s Skull
Poem by John Kinsella
A sheep’s Skull aged so much in rain and heat,
broken jawbone and chipped teeth half-
gnaw soil; zippered fuse-mark tracks
back to front, runs through to base
of neck, widening faultline under
stress: final crack close at hand.
Skull I can’t bring myself to move.
White-out red soil unearthed
from hillside fox den and cat haven,
now hideaway for short-beaked echidna
toppling rocks and stones, disrupting
artfulness a spirit might impose,
frisson at seeing counterpoint.
Skull I can’t bring myself to move.
Sometimes avoid the spot to avoid
looking half-hearted into its sole
remaining eye socket; mentally to join
bones strewn downhill, come apart
or torn from mountings years before
arriving with good intentions.
Skull I can’t bring myself to move.
Not something you can ‘clean up’,
shape of skull is not a measure of all
it contained: weight of light and dark,
scales of sound, vast and varied taste
of all grass eaten from these hills;
slow and steady gnawing at soil.
Skull I can’t bring myself to move.
Neither herbivore nor carnivore,
earth and sky-eater, fire in its shout
or whisper, racing through to leave a bed
of ash on which the mind might rest,
drinking sun and light and smoke,
choked up with experience.
Skull I can’t bring myself to move.
Drawn to examine
despite aversion, consider
our head on its shoulders,
drawn expression
greeting loved ones
with arms outstretched.
John Kinsella is Founding editor of the journal Salt in Australia; he serves as international editor at the Kenyon Review. His most recent volume of poetry is Divine Comedy: Journeys through a Regional Geography (W. W. Norton) with a new volume, Disturbed Ground: Jam Tree Gully/Walden, due out with W.W. Norton in November 2011.
Gowran park, a day at the races
January 24th races at Gowran park, County Kilkenny
Events photography by : Nigel Borrington
It was a January afternoon at Gowran Park , County Kilkenny. Thursday, January 24th and the meeting was the National Hunt “Goffs Thyestes H’cap Chase Grade A & John Mulhern Memorial Hdle Grade 2”
It was a cold afternoon but the going was good, it’s the fullest I had seen the race course for this event and the bookies must have been rubbing their hands, not from the cold.
I arrived with the aim of photographing as much of the events as possible. I wanted to capture not just the race itself, actually this was the least interesting to me. I wanted to capture events behind the races, the bookies and the show ring. I felt I wanted to get a sense of the day in full, to capture what a race meeting is all about.
I got lots of images of the events and present some of them here, from the show ring to the finishing line, I am only starting this project to be honest and plan to return many times.
The the 14:30 race, Gowran Park, a Gallery
