Flora & Fauna , A Poem by crowbarius – Hello Poetry
Flora & Fauna
Irish Nature Photography : Nigel Borrington
Flora & Fauna
Flora and Fauna, the sisters of Season
Of Spring and of Summer
Allow now our drummer
To drum out the beat
For the feet of the sisters
To glide and to creep
Like the encroaching sleep
Which may perch on your shoulder if we cannot keep you awake
And on the edge of your seat, sir.
Now the former, sweet Flora, will finger the flute
While the other continues to glide and to slide
Like a sequined Venetian harlequin bride;
And now Fauna will mimic the movements of bird and of beast
As she graces the work of our landscape artiste
And all is completely unfeasible
Completely lacks reason
We guarantee.
Presently
In the eye of the beholder
Sweet Flora seemingly draws from the aether a lyre
And with flourishing fingers she plucks from the heavens
A song of the seasons, a pagan ode to Pan!
Behold! No aid of hoops, no strings
The vestal-virgin-harlot sisters sing
Of beautiful Persephone
And with unseen damselfly wings
Ascend from mediocrity
All melody forgotten
All the drums create cacophony
And you will find serenity in chaotic monotony
Now let this climaxing crescendo banish all your sorrowing!
No more that light; no more that sacred realm
Life’s door was dappled gloam; now all is black.
A man of wax with saintly, hollow eyes
Devoid of sin, devoid of love and light
That golden room is lost – you can’t turn back.
Now love has lost its lustre – lust lost joy
And coy eyes turn to watch the empty man
Struck by eternal beauty, and condemned
To haunt the broken world of mortal men;
And shrilling wind caresses empty hand.
The Old Lane Through The Woods – Poem by jim hogg , Kilkenny Landscape photography
The Old Lane Through The Woods
Black and white landscapes
Nigel Borrington
The Old Lane Through The Woods –
Poem by jim hogg
There’s a track through the trees from the White to the Black
that I walked as a kid and I often went back.
Now the years slip away and the distances grow,
but if time gives us time and we get to change tack
if the notion should take you then I’d gladly go:
in wildest November before winter’s trance,
at the height of the spring when the daffodils dance.
We could stand on the bank where the Rhodies convene,
like the first of our kind who looked down on that scene,
on a loch with no name, with no castles around,
or old burial ground of the meek and the mean;
though the rich bled the poor, by the sod they’re all bound.
Or we’ll maybe just stay on the old woodland road
and head north to the Black with the odd jumping toad.
There’s a whole constellation of things we can view.
In the summer there’s herons and sometimes deer too,
and there’s dodging and weaving through armies of leaves.
Though the foxgloves are rare I’ll find one just for you,
and then swing on the Ivy through Sycamore trees.
If you ever have time we could wander off down
that old lane through the woods whether wintry or lown.
But I know all too well that this life is a crush.
There’d be too much to do if we didn’t all rush.
And I wonder sometimes how it all went so wrong;
but they’re calling it progress with hardly a blush –
in a world where rich hippies can still sing along.
There’s a place where that craziness doesn’t hold sway;
if you’re ever back home we could go there some day
God, ” A nasty surprise in a sandwich ” – Poem by James Fenton
God, A Poem –
Poem by James Fenton
A nasty surprise in a sandwich,
A drawing-pin caught in your sock,
The limpest of shakes from a hand which
You’d thought would be firm as a rock,
A serious mistake in a nightie,
A grave disappointment all round
Is all that you’ll get from th’Almighty,
Is all that you’ll get underground.
Oh he said: ‘If you lay off the crumpet
I’ll see you alright in the end.
Just hang on until the last trumpet.
Have faith in me, chum-I’m your friend.’
But if you remind him, he’ll tell you:
‘I’m sorry, I must have been pissed-
Though your name rings a sort of a bell. You
Should have guessed that I do not exist.
‘I didn’t exist at Creation,
I didn’t exist at the Flood,
And I won’t be around for Salvation
To sort out the sheep from the cud-
‘Or whatever the phrase is. The fact is
In soteriological terms
I’m a crude existential malpractice
And you are a diet of worms.
‘You’re a nasty surprise in a sandwich.
You’re a drawing-pin caught in my sock.
You’re the limpest of shakes from a hand which
I’d have thought would be firm as a rock,
‘You’re a serious mistake in a nightie,
You’re a grave disappointment all round-
That’s all you are, ‘ says th’Almighty,
‘And that’s all that you’ll be underground.’
1983
The River Of Life, A poem By Thomas Campbell
River of life, River Suir
Clonmel , Ireland
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
The River Of Life
Poem by Thomas Campbell
The more we live, more brief appear
Our life’s succeeding stages;
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.
The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.
But as the careworn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow’s shafts fly thicker,
Ye stars, that measure life to man,
Why seem your courses quicker?
When joys have lost their bloom and breath,
And life itself is vapid,
Why, as we reach the Falls of Death
Feel we its tide more rapid?
It may be strange—yet who would change
Time’s course to slower speeding,
When one by one our friends have gone,
And left our bosoms bleeding?
Heaven gives our years of fading strength
Indemnifying fleetness;
And those of youth, a seeming length,
Proportioned to their sweetness.
The River Of Life
Thomas Campbell
The Growth of a Seed – By Dan Farella
The Growth of a seed
Nature Photography : Nigel Borrington
The Growth of a Seed
– By Dan Farella
The growth of a seed
Starts with a need
A feeling inside her
Like a burning fire
Glowing to inspire
And the growth transpires
Inside her that fire
Burning brighter and brighter
Ignites her into a frenzy of burning desire
To lift herself higher, and higher, and higher…
A desire to surrender to the growth that transpires
And she never grows tired, growing, and growing
And a sprout grows out from beyond the doubt
The shadows get exposed to the light of insight
As the stem grows longer getting stronger and stronger
The days get brighter and her spirit feels lighter
The pulsing emanates from a sacred place…
Babump…. babump… babump….
Reaching for the light radiating inner sight
[And an animal comes to take a little bite]
And the nutrients they grow as the energy it flows
And the time has come for her soul to become one
So she sends out her leaves allows herself to be alive
No running no hiding and nowhere to go
So it waits and it grows and it sits and it flows
As the thoughts pass by and she holds her composure
Growing and growing flowing and flowing
Getting taller and stronger
Allowing herself to be seen
It goes on and on as she reaches her dawn
Only to know that its time for her to move on
And release her seeds to the wind, set sail
And she trusts they will grow through wind, rain, or hail
As she brings all the energy up into her crown
The wind begins to blow as she listens to the sound
And she knows its time to let her children take flight
Getting lost in the life, the love, and de-light
She completes her deed and she dies a slow death
But she knows she will go back into the goddess breath
Where she feeds the soil that will grow her kin
With the nutrients she once used to help her begin
And she feels a sense of right-ness and completeness inside
As she knows that she worked with Natures highest design
And she never grows tired, growing and growing
Reaping and sowing, reaping and sowing.
– By Dan Farella
From Blossoms, Poem By : Li-Young Lee
From Blossoms
Nature Photography : Nigel Borrington
From Blossoms
By : Li-Young Lee
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
– Li-Young Lee
To The Daisy, Poems by William Wordsworth
The Daisy
Nature Photography : Nigel Borrington
Her divine skill taught me this,
That from every thing I saw
I could some instruction draw,
And raise pleasure to the height
Through the meanest objects sight.
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough’s rustelling;
By a Daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree;
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature’s beauties can
In some other wiser man.
in youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,
Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,–
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature’s love partake,
Of Thee, sweet Daisy!
Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few grey hairs;
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee;
Whole Summer-fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy Wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.
In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet’st the traveller in the lane;
Pleased at his greeting thee again;
Yet nothing daunted,
Nor grieved if thou be set at nought:
And oft alone in nooks remote
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.
Be violets in their secret mews
The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;
Proud be the rose, with rains and dews
Her head impearling,
Thou liv’st with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The Poet’s darling.
If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,
And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art!–a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.
A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some apprehension;
Some steady love; some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight;
Some chime of fancy wrong or right;
Or stray invention.
If stately passions in me burn,
And one chance look to Thee should turn,
I drink out of an humbler urn
A lowlier pleasure;
The homely sympathy that heeds
The common life, our nature breeds;
A wisdom fitted to the needs
Of hearts at leisure.
Fresh-smitten by the morning ray,
When thou art up, alert and gay,
Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness:
And when, at dusk, by dews opprest
Thou sink’st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.
And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,
To thee am owing;
An instinct call it, a blind sense;
A happy, genial influence,
Coming one knows not how, nor whence,
Nor whither going.
Child of the Year! that round dost run
Thy pleasant course,–when day’s begun
As ready to salute the sun
As lark or leveret,
Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;
Nor be less dear to future men
Than in old time;–thou not in vain
Art Nature’s favourite
Hover Fly – Poem by Michael Shepherd
Hover Fly – Poem by Michael Shepherd
Nature Photography : Nigel Borrington
Hover Fly
Poem by Michael Shepherd
The hover fly
that’s just demonstrated
that it’s one of the Creation’s greatest
and smallest, most compact miracles of lawful
imagination (imagine flying, then stopping
quite still in the air, no slowing down,
just, zap, like that, dead steady,
and it’s smaller (!) than a helicopter, wow)
right here in front of me in silhouette, but
illuminated on one wing by the PC screen,
and pausing for a freeze-frame moment of eternity
as if to tell me something
(illumination, too?) –
all this, and yet it
doesn’t know I’m writing about it.
Presumably.
The Fly – Poem by William Blake
The Fly – Poem by William Blake
Nature photography : Nigel Borrington
The Fly
Poem by William Blake
Little Fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
.
For I dance
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life
And strength and breath
And the want
Of thought is death;
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.
On The Beach – A Poem by Michael Williams
Beach Photography
Nigel Borrington
On The Beach –
A Poem by Michael Williams
At dawn, bare footed, viewing as far as eyes can reach,
the water’s edge advances and recedes along the beach.
Before me I see a carpet of half-buried shells of sea-creatures,
tide washed and rippled in sodden sand along the beach.
I move, exploring, sodden sand oozing between my toes,
beyond me the wavelets breaking on the sand along the beach.
.
Behind me, my wandering trail is blurred and indistinct,
as the water’s edge advances and recedes along the beach.
At mid-day, on the soft dry sand behind the water’s edge,
undressed worshippers lie in the sun that beats down along the beach.
.
At night, the moon’s reflection at the water’s edge
resembles sea serpents playing in the wavelets along the beach.
Mornings and Coffee, Poem By : Gabryela Speaks
Morning Coffee
Image : Nigel Borrington
Mornings and Coffee
By : Gabryela Speaks
Feb 2 2015
Cold mornings, warm coffee
The aroma comforts me
Pushing the freezing moment
of having to recall you.
You used to sit with me.
You would look into my eyes,
flash a beautiful smile
and I always wonder
what you see
But one day,
you stopped being you.
Three Poems with the title : Primrose
Springtime Primrose
Nature Photography : Nigel Borrington
Primrose
By Pud
Primrose Stirs Lifts Up Her Head
Stands Up Tall On Softened Bed
Resurrected, As Winter Dreams
Primrose Smiles Or So It Seems
Primrose
By : Charlotte
You looked at me as if I were a
primrose
A delicate flower
with tiny petals
opening up to you
with little thorns to prick you with
when you make me angry
You plucked me up
away from the sun
and the moon
and the sky
and my little primrose friends
You put me in an expensive vase,
caring for me the best you could.
But sometimes you go away,
and alone
I am wilting
Primrose
William Carlos Williams
(1883 – 1963)
Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow!
It is not a color.
It is summer!
It is the wind on a willow,
the lap of waves, the shadow
under a bush, a bird, a bluebird,
three herons, a dead hawk
rotting on a pole—
Clear yellow!
It is a piece of blue paper
in the grass or a threecluster of
green walnuts swaying, children
playing croquet or one boy
fishing, a man
swinging his pink fists
as he walks—
It is ladysthumb, forget-me-nots
in the ditch, moss under
the flange of the carrail, the
wavy lines in split rock, a
great oaktree—
It is a disinclination to be
five red petals or a rose, it is
a cluster of birdsbreast flowers
on a red stem six feet high,
four open yellow petals
above sepals curled
backward into reverse spikes—
Tufts of purple grass spot the
green meadow and clouds the sky.
My father moved through dooms of love , By : E. E. Cummings, 1894 – 1962
Pentredwr, Hourseshoe pass,
Llangollen,
North Wales
Landscape Photography Nigel Borrington
Its a personal post this one but a post I very much enjoyed getting together !!!
My Father and Mother sadly split when I was six years of age, something that these days I have very much been a peace with.
Over the last few years through accident more that any planning, I found the place he spend the last few years of his life with his second wife and family. He moved to a village “Pentredwr” in a valley near the horseshoe pass, Llangollen , North wales, Its a truly beautiful part of the world.
I visited again during the Easter Holidays and took these pictures of the landscape he must have enjoyed for so many years 🙂 🙂
my father moved through dooms of love
By E. E. Cummings, 1894 – 1962
My father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height
this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm
.
newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots
and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.
Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin
joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice
.
keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father’s dream
his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.
Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain
septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is
.
proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark
his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he’d laugh and build a world with snow.
My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)
then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold
.
giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am
though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath
and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why men breathe—
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all
Twilight on the Beach : A poem by : Mary Dow Brine
When Twilight falls upon the beach,
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Twilight on the Beach.
By : Mary Dow Brine
The crimson glory of the setting sun
Hath lain a moment on the ocean’s breast,
Till twilight shadows, gathering one by one,
Bring us the tidings, day is gone to rest.
Far out upon the waters, like a veil,
The mists of evening rise and stretch away
Between the horizon and the distant sail,
And earth and sea are clothed in sombre gray.
The tide comes higher up the smooth, wide beach,
Singing the song it has for ages sung;
Recedes, and carries far beyond our reach
The freight my idle hands have seaward flung.
Over the white-capped waves the seagulls soar
With heavy-flapping wing and restless cry,
As darkness spreads its deeper mantle o’er
The changing shadows of the twilight sky.
.
No voice but mine to mingle with the sound
Of ocean’s melody- as one by one
The stars light up the vast concave around,
And live the glory that is never done.
Still higher creeps the tide with subtle power,
And still the waves advance with sullen roar;
But with the last faint gleam of twilight hour
I turn me homeward from the lonely shore.
Monday Poems : “Monday Mornings” By : Emily Helen Culver
Monday Mornings
By : Emily Helen Culver
breathing in and out
looking forward, ready to shout
the day might have started
but my brain just won’t function
it’s funny how they demand my attention
yelling out my name
won’t win you this game
keep on playing it
while I lay down and sleep a bit
the weekend hangover
taking over
Monday Poems : Donkey of Brown
Monday Poems : Donkey in Brown
Photography : Nigel Borrington
Well What a weekend we had here in Ireland SUN on SUN , just perfect 🙂 🙂
Its hard to believe its Monday already, my post and included Poem this Morning is just a reminder that while your getting your week going , don’t forget to take the odd moment to slow down and take a look at the world around you, it’s Spring-time so take just a few moments and check out what’s really happening in the world – your meeting / phone call or email can wait for a while 🙂 🙂
Donkey of brown
By : Patricia Higgins
Please let me know
Why is it that you go so slow?
He turned round gently and to me said
I have some sense in my little brown head.
.
By hurrying so as you go by
You miss the beauty in earth and sky.
So I took his advice and looked around,
And I saw diamonds in dew drops on the ground.
Daises that dance in the sun’s golden ray,
Things I missed as I hurried each day.
Gold in the buttercups, clouds in the blue,
What the donkey had said was perfectly true.
Three Poems , all with the Title “Morning star”
Morning Star, over Slievenamon , Co Tipperary
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Morning Star.
By : Connor Sean McMurrick Crow
A kingdom in ancient history,
long before man was thought to exist,
stood in Hyperborean heartland.
Ruled in peace by a woman of antediluvian
beauty and her King-Groom.
Leviathan, a queen of rare black hair and eyes of velt,
rose every morning to greet the sunrise.
On this particular day, she woke Archon.
With a trailing gown of violet, she led him
by hand through perfumed gardens of
exotic sights.
Sunna broke over the hedges and
burnt the mist from frail orchids,
and all that was left of that kingdom
of runic beauty were two lovers entwined in stone.
.
By : Scott Madden
Dec 22, 2014
The Morning Star
Have you seen the morning star?
It keeps it’s vigil in the East,
A prophet of the dawn.
It rises when the night is at its coldest,
The warmest light in the vast blackness.
It rises when the night is at its darkest,
The brightest light in the black vastness.
Have you seen the morning star?
.
By : Justinian
Feb 2, 2010
Morning Star
The sun wakes and stretches its rays over the horizon.
Embraced is my heart and my smile shines on.
In my dreams,
you I did miss.
When I awake,
your lips I shall kiss.
The Old stone bridge, a Poem by, Tony Mitton
Irish Landscapes : Nigel Borrington
The old stone bridge
By, Tony Mitton
The old stone bridge
is where folk stood to talk,
watching the water go under,
hearing its fluent music
gather their words
to carry notions, ruminations, gossip
away in a silver wrapping
of rippled sound.
Sometimes, too, the women would come,
down the stone steps to the brookside
to launder the linen, the clothes.
And again, all the soil,
the sweat and the swear of life,
would be washed in that water,
rolled in that bundle
of tinkling, tumbling sound,
to be carried down,
out of sight and of mind,
rinsed by the workings of water.
Monday Morning Poems – Dark Wood, Dark Water, by – Sylvia Plath
Dark Wood, Dark Water
By : Sylvia Plath
This wood burns a dark
Incense. Pale moss drips
In elbow-scarves, beards
From the archaic
Bones of the great trees.
Blue mists move over
A lake thick with fish.
Snails scroll the border
Of the glazed water
With coils of ram’s-horn.
Out in the open
Down there the late year
Hammers her rare and
Various metals.
Old pewter roots twist
Up from the jet-backed
Mirror of water
And while the air’s clear
Hourglass sifts a
Drift of goldpieces
Bright waterlights are
Sliding their quoits one
After the other
Down boles of the fir.
Last night as I was sleeping, Poem by : Antonio Machado
Last night as I was sleeping
Kilkenny Landscapes : Nigel Borrington
Antonio Machado
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous dreams
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous dreams
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous dreams
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.
Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous dreams
that it was life I had
here inside my heart.
When the fishing boats go out , Poem and Images, By L. M. Montgomery
When the fishing boats go out.
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
WHEN THE FISHING BOATS GO OUT
By L. M. Montgomery
WHEN the lucent skies of morning flush with dawning rose once more,
And waves of golden glory break adown the sunrise shore,
And o’er the arch of heaven pied films of vapor float.
There’s joyance and there’s freedom when the fishing boats go out.
The wind is blowing freshly up from far, uncharted caves,
And sending sparkling kisses o’er the brows of virgin waves,
While routed dawn-mists shiver–oh, far and fast they flee,
Pierced by the shafts of sunrise athwart the merry sea!
Behind us, fair, light-smitten hills in dappled splendor lie,
Before us the wide ocean runs to meet the limpid sky–
Our hearts are full of poignant life, and care has fled afar
As sweeps the white-winged fishing fleet across the harbor bar.
The sea is calling to us in a blithesome voice and free,
There’s keenest rapture on its breast and boundless liberty!
Each man is master of his craft, its gleaming sails out-blown,
And far behind him on the shore a home he calls his own.
Salt is the breath of ocean slopes and fresher blows the breeze,
And swifter still each bounding keel cuts through the combing seas,
Athwart our masts the shadows of the dipping sea-gulls float,
And all the water-world’s alive when the fishing boats go out.
Irish Landscapes, Freedom of the Hills, Poem by : Douglas Fraser – 1968
The Freedom of the hills
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Freedom of the Hills
By: Douglas Fraser – 1968
Mine is the freedom of the tranquil hills
When vagrant breezes bend the sinewy grass,
While sunshine on the widespread landscape spills
And light as down the fleet cloud-shadowed pass.
Mine, still, that freedom when the storm-clouds race,
Cracking their whips against defiant crags
And mists swirl boiling up from inky space
To vanish on the instant, torn to rags.
When winter grips the mountains in a vice,
Silently stifling with its pall of snow,
Checking the streams, draping the rocks in ice,
Still to their mantled summits I would go.
Sun-drenched, I sense the message they impart;
Storm-lashed, I hear it sing through every vein;
Among the snows it whispers to my heart
“Here is your freedom. Taste – and come again.”
Allihies copper mines, Copper Mine a Poem By : Madhu Kailas
Allihies copper mines
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
The Copper mines located at the small town of Allihies , west cork Ireland are amongst some of the most worked and preserved in this part of Europe , their history is as follows :
Copper mining started in Allihies in 1812 when John Puxley, a local landlord, identified the large quartz promontory at Dooneen as copper bearing from its bright Malachite staining.
The Allihies Mines
Initial mining began with a tunnel or adit driven into the quartz lode from the pebble beach below. In 1821 two shafts were sunk . Flooding was a continuous problem and in 1823 the engine house was erected to house a steam engine brought over from Cornwall to pump water from the depths. The remains of this building with the base of the chimney can be seen across the road. There is also evidence of a steam powered stamp engine to the left of the chimney and dressing floors in front of the engine house. The high dam further inland is the remaining evidence of a water reservoir which stored the water that was pumped out from the bottom of the mine. It was used for the steam engines and needed to separate the copper from rock. All the rubble on the cliff at the sea side of the road is the crushed useless quartz rock left over after the copper ore was extracted.
This is one of six productive mines in the Allihies area and its operation continued until 1838 when it closed due to failing ore.
John Puxley died in 1860 and in 1868 his son Henry Puxley sold the mines to the new Berehaven Mining Company who reopened the mine and installed a new 22 inch steam engine in 1872. Little ore was produced though in this period and the mine was finally abandoned in 1878.
Copper Mine
By : Madhu Kailas
Hollowed earth,
a large reservoir of emptiness.
Deep down where only
the moon can touch
dregs of an empty cup,
static turquoise fluid
of residual copper blood.
Cyclopean machines
crawl like dwarf ants.
Along grooves etched by mortal hands.
Gnaw at rocks,
startled out of deep sleep
to be stripped.
An ancient cave painting
tumbles out of extinction
delineated by squished insect blood
on ochre flats.
Dead insects scrabble out of rocks
on the landscape of our civilisation.
Nigel Borrington 
Visiting an empty Church , Kilcash parish church, Co. Tipperary
Kilcash parish church
County Tipperary
Nigel Borrington
I so very rarely visit a church when a service is being held these days, Weddings and Funerals apart.
When I am out walking however, I will often wander into a local church, just for a look around. I am not so sure about the christian story anymore, I was as a child and into my teens but moved away the more I got into the great outdoors and into the nature that surrounds us.
Personally What I find is OK about visiting an empty church is that I have time to think about the spiritual massage they attempt to bring , the very fact however that there is no priest at the alter, well preaching! at you, just gives you a little more space to think for yourself about your own beliefs. These days my own beliefs lay more outside the church as to me if there is a God then he is to be found in nature and not inside the walls of a church.
Its not that I have anything against a church mass or service, its more that I find being outside is more spiritual than being inside a church walls, to me like many, I feel that if there is a god ( such as the church depicts ) then he is as likely if not more to be found in the life that can be found in the forests and the fields as sitting down and listening to a priest.
I feel that if he is to be found then its along a path of discovery in the world of nature that surrounds all of us.
Inside Kilcash Parish Church
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March 10, 2015 | Categories: Comment, Landscape, Poetry Gallery, The Pagan world | Tags: Church, church mass, comment, images of churches, Inside churchs, Kilcash parish, local church, Nature, Pagan, Paganism, personal beliefs, religion | 1 Comment