County Kilkenny landscape : A poem : Over the Fence , By jesse.vanwallene
Kilkenny Landscapes
Over the Fence
Nigel Borrington
Over the Fence
I remember the giant field that was just a house away from my parents’ house and how I could tell what season it was by what it was being used for.
I remember how in the fall the field was used for corn and how in the spring it was used for alfalfa or cotton and how at the start of summer it was used for lazy sheep to graze and get fat.
I remember when there were no crops or livestock in the field and it was just dirt and tumbleweeds and how the desert wind picked up the earth in wild dust storms and dirt devils would race onto my street.
I remember venturing out with my brother, jelly jars in hand, to the center of the field and capturing tiny black and red lady bugs before sun down, just to compare who could catch more before our mother called us back for supper.
I remember how shocked I was when they put up a fence around the field with no trespassing signs posted and when I saw the giant earth movers roaring their engines trying to produce man made hills and lakes for a retirement community golf course.
I remember how mad I was that someone had taken away my refuge and how I took it out on the Porto potties every once and a while just to let out some frustrations.
I remember when the grass came in and the sidewalks were built how quickly I stopped being mad and how we bought frozen blocks of ice to sit on and slide down the grassy hills with on long summer days.
I remember skate boarding to a spot on the course overlooking a lake where I would listen to my music and watch as the wind passed through the trees and over the water creating tiny waves that moved from one side all the way to the other where I sat, escaping.
I remember the smell of the fresh cut grass and the cold sting of the unsuspected sprinklers and the duck families and the old people and the trees and the wide open sky at the edge of the city where storms could roll up or the stars could stretch out further than my eyes could see.
But most of all I remember how wonderful it was to have a place to escape to and ease my thoughts with only the blistering sun or the chilling winds of the changing seasons to keep me company.
Kilkenny Landscape Photography, A Poem : Beyond the gate ……..
Kilkenny Landscape photography
Beyond the gate
Nigel Borrington
An open field gate, they always invite you in.
Just like anything in life when something is open it makes you want to explore !!!!
Beyond The Gate
Beyond the gate
Lies a whole new world
If you want to know
Go beyond the gate
We shall not know
Until we go beyond the gate
Monday Poetry : Light By – Saugat Upadhyay
light
Light is a way,
Light is a zone,
Light is a past,
Which shows the future.
Light is a mountain,
Light is a hurdle,
Light is a debt,
Which leads to the quest.
Light is a beginning,
Light is a end,
Light is a truth,
Which gives us a fruit.
Light is a flower,
Light is a fragrance,
Light is a life,
Which gives hope to survive.
Kilkenny Landscape images : Last Light Of Day – Poem by Mark De Pena
Kilkenny Landscape images
Last light of the day
Nigel Borrington
LAST LIGHT OF DAY.
Last light of day, a golden sunset
Last time to play, but I’m not done yet
I love a sunset, a golden late afternoon
This is as good as it gets, so I sit and croon
Croon about, this fortunate life
Grateful about a tolerant wife
Happy about the things I’ve done
Happy you are, the only one
Last light of day, we anticipate the night
Let me show the way, to pure delight
Let us sit in the moonlight, enjoy each other
Let me savour this sight, let me discover
Discover this person, that is you
Just simply conversin, between us two
Sometimes no words are needed to be said
That might sound absurd, but it’s what’s in my head
Halloween Poetry : Spirits of the Dead, Edgar Allan Poe
Spirits of the Dead
By Edgar Allan Poe
I
Thy soul shall find itself alone
’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone—
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
II
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness—for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around thee—and their will
Shall overshadow thee: be still.
III
The night, tho’ clear, shall frown—
And the stars shall look not down
From their high thrones in the heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given—
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever.
IV
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,
Now are visions ne’er to vanish;
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more—like dew-drop from the grass.
V
The breeze—the breath of God—is still—
And the mist upon the hill,
Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token—
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone !!!!
Its A Sheeps Soul, Poem By : fayaz bhat
Its A Sheeps Soul
By : fayaz bhat
O cherisher! Of hairy goats, rocky ridges,
Still vales and white-woolen sheep;
Of my love, of melodies, of muses, of her beau;
It’s the soul of a forgotten sheep
Looking for her poor pastor, his white drove
And, the rest in shade;
Or ‘tis a shepherd, a shepherdess more,
Singing in solitude, rhyme, underneath a tree
In the relaxed midday of jubilant springs,
Ballads, lounged beside the sitting slept sheep.
Or; ‘tis that boy in the wild highs
Playing floyera reclined on the mossy rock—
Goats bleat and forget to graze;
Waking up the beasts, waking up the breeze,
Eared by the deer, cheered by the crows,
’lauded by the woods, echoed by the vale.
Free her! Guide her! For it says so sweet:
My abode’s among the weeds,
The wild flowers grow, the stony meads live.
Irish Landscape Photography : Slievenamon Bog, County Tipperary, The Bog Lands a Poem By : William A. Byrne
Irish Landscape Photography
Slievenamon Bog
Nigel Borrington
The Bog Lands
By William A. Byrne
THE purple heather is the cloak
God gave the bogland brown,
But man has made a pall o’ smoke
To hide the distant town.
Our lights are long and rich in change,
Unscreened by hill or spire,
From primrose dawn, a lovely range,
To sunset’s farewell fire.
No morning bells have we to wake
Us with their monotone,
But windy calls of quail and crake
Unto our beds are blown.
The lark’s wild flourish summons us
To work before the sun;
At eve the heart’s lone Angelus
Blesses our labour done.
We cleave the sodden, shelving bank
In sunshine and in rain,
That men by winter-fires may thank
The wielders of the slane.
Our lot is laid beyond the crime
That sullies idle hands;
So hear we through the silent time
God speaking sweet commands.
Brave joys we have and calm delight—
For which tired wealth may sigh—
The freedom of the fields of light,
The gladness of the sky.
And we have music, oh, so quaint!
The curlew and the plover,
To tease the mind with pipings faint
No memory can recover;
The reeds that pine about the pools
In wind and windless weather;
The bees that have no singing-rules
Except to buzz together.
And prayer is here to give us sight
To see the purest ends;
Each evening through the brown-turf light
The Rosary ascends.
And all night long the cricket sings
The drowsy minutes fall,—
The only pendulum that swings
Across the crannied wall.
Then we have rest, so sweet, so good,
The quiet rest you crave;
The long, deep bogland solitude
That fits a forest’s grave;
The long, strange stillness, wide and deep,
Beneath God’s loving hand,
Where, wondering at the grace of sleep,
The Guardian Angels stand.
Monday Morning Nature Photography and a Poetry , “The Spiders web” by E.B. White
Wildlife and Nature images
Spider in her web
Nigel Borrington
This Morning while walking through our local woods, I came across a Gorse bush and noticed that its was decorated with spiders webs. Each web was covered in early morning dew, so I started to take a few photographs, while doing so I noticed that the spider who had most likely spent most of the night creating these amazing structures was still at work.
It was a great moment! just to stop and watch her as she continued to work on finishing just another one of so many of her webs, I managed to captures some close up images , some of which I share here – 🙂 🙂
“The Spiders web” by E.B. White
The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.
And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.
Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider’s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.
E.B. White
Spiders web Gallery
October’s Party a poem By: George Cooper
October’s Party
By: George Cooper
October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came—
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.
Then, in the rustic hollow,
At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly “hands around.”
Eva Cassidy – Who Knows Where The Time Goes ?
Who Knows Where The Time Goes ?
Irish Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
Eva Cassidy – Who Knows Where The Time Goes ?
Across the evening sky,all the birds are leaving
Oh but then you know, it was time for them to go
By the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I do not count the time
for who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?
Sad,deserted shore
your fickle friends are leaving
oh, but then you know it was time for them to go
But I will still be here
I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time
for who knows where the time goes?
I know I’m not alone
while my love is near me
I know that its so until its time to go
All the storms in Winter and the birds in Spring again
I do not count the time
For who knows where the time goes?
who knows where the time goes?
who knows where the time goes?
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A poem by: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Images of Banna Strand, Kerry, Ireland
Banna Strand,
Tralee Bay,
Irish Landscape Photography,
Nigel Borrington
From “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The “Rime“ is one of the greatest pieces of Romantic literature. And the section of this epic poem in which the dead sailors get up and start sailing the boat again without seeing anything is as terrifying as anything in the horror genre.
The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The Moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.
The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.
The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up-blew;
The mariners all ‘gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
We were a ghastly crew.
The body of my brother’s son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.
‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!’
Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
‘Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corpses came again,
But a troop of spirits ablest:
For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.
Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the Sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!
And now ’twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel’s song,
That makes the heavens be mute.
It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.
Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.
The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:
But in a minute she ‘gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion—
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.
Then like a pawing horse let go,
She made a sudden bound:
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.
Monday poetry , River Banks by Carolyn Follett
Irish Landscapes
River Maine
Kilderry North
County Kerry
Nigel Borrington
River has a silver string that runs its length,
holds it to a source in the mountains.
River cradles its corded muscles of water
between high banks, giving the banks no thought
as it bites them with eddies,
eroding their lower flanks.
River thinks it is only water and the gristle
of currents, hay stacking surfaces
and deep, bellowing falls
running for the sea, though
it does not know it is there.
River should take more care of its banks.
Banks are what hold it a river, give
direction, keep it mitering downward.
Without banks, river loses its way,
becomes a swamp and stills.
All my life I have chafed at river banks,
fighting to spread my currents
in whatever turn needed exploring.
The high song of freedom seemed
to be a music of ‘no banks’,
and yet the whole joy of rivers is pushing,
etching the banks to join the flow,
but having them hold.
Irish Landscape Photography , the river Maine , Kilderry north, county Kerry : Nigel Borrington
Irish Landscapes
River Maine
Kilderry North
County Kerry
Nigel Borrington
A river Poem By : Manonton Dalan
TREE BY THE RIVER
Under the tree’s canopy, there I lay
Dreaming how the world could be
Beyond those clouds, the horizon
Would there be one like me, alone
Got up pick up the roundest stone
Cast to the river and glide by its own
Hits a ripple, goes airborne
For a kid like me, it is a phenom
By the grassy banks, frogs abound
Love to disturb them,
into the river they plunge
Never tried to catch them because they slime
So beautiful, shiny greenish yellow, brown
Water is crystal clear,
see fishes swimming
Stones unturned are coated with stringy green
Constantly dancing as the little shells cling
Reach down to touch the water
Felt something came to me, a power
Don’t know what it was but still here
“Sailing to Byzantium” a poem by William Butler Yeats
Muckross lake
lakes of Killarney
Irish landscape Photography
Nigel Borrington
Sailing to Byzantium
by William Butler Yeats
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing‐masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Flow from the Mountain Spring : Poem “A Mountain Spring” – by Henry Kendall
Waters flow from the mountain spring
Slievenamon
Tipperary
Nigel Borrington
Peace hath an altar there. The sounding feet
Of thunder and the wildering wings of rain
Against fire-rifted summits flash and beat,
And through grey upper gorges swoop and strain;
But round that hallowed mountain-spring remain,
Year after year, the days of tender heat,
And gracious nights whose lips with flowers are sweet,
And filtered lights, and lutes of soft refrain.
A still, bright pool. To men I may not tell
The secrets that its heart of water knows,
The story of a loved and lost repose;
Yet this I say to cliff and close-leaved dell:
A fitful spirit haunts yon limpid well,
Whose likeness is the faithless face of Rose.
Henry Kendall
Flow from the Mountain Spring : Gallery
Friday Poetry : in the Valley Of Slievenamon , Charles Joseph Kickham
The Valley Of Slievenamon
Irish Landscape Images
Nigel Borrington
Alone, all alone, by the wave-washed strand
All alone in the crowded hall
The hall it is gay, and the waves they are grand
But my heart is not here at all.
It flies far away, by night and by day
To the times and the joys that are gone.
But I never will forget the sweet maiden I met
In the valley of Slievenamon.
It was not the grace of her queenly air
Nor her cheek of the rose’s glow
Nor her soft black eyes, not her flowing hair
Nor was it her lily-white brow,
‘Twas the soul of truth, and of melting ruth
And the smile like a summer dawn
That sold my heart away on a soft summer day
In the valley of Slievenamon.
In the festival hall, by the star-washed shore,
Ever my restless spirit cries.
‘My love, oh, my love, shall I ne’er see you more.
And my land, will you never uprise?’
By night and by day, I ever, ever pray
While lonely my life flows on
To see our flag unfurled and my true love to enfold
In the valley of Slievenamon.
Charles Joseph Kickham
Poems by Charles Joseph Kickham
My Midnight Dream, Poem By : Daniel Raymond
My Midnight Dream
As I lay here in the land of dreams
where nothings ever as it seems
the stars dance on the stage of night
and I sit and watch this awesome sight
they turn and shine and dip and sway
and beckon me to come and play
and as I come to join the dance
I finally get to have the chance
to bring you close enough to see
the light you shine envelop me
the stars are there to light the way
and there we’ll dance till the break of day
Wild Woodbine, a Poem by – Joan McBreen
Wild Woodbine
Joan McBreen
Wild woodbine was beyond my reach
in the thick hedges round Lough Gill.
The heavy scent filled the house for days
when my father brought it in
and it stayed fresh far longer
then meadowsweet.
Because I loved the delicate
pink and white wild rose
he picked it too, cursing the thorns, muttering
“it dies too soon,
you’d be better leaving it alone”.
Yet once, when my mother
swept its petals from the floor
I saw him rescue one
and place it carefully
in the small wallet
where he kept her photograph.
Wild Woodbine
Three Poems about the Beach
Sandy Beaches
Morgan Swain
Sprinkle, squish between my toes,
The smell of ocean to my nose.
I can feel each grain of sand,
It falls from air into my hand.
The shells I find along the shore,
Picked up by birds that fly and soar.
They sparkle like the ocean’s waves,
And carry sand from all the lakes.
I walk along the tip of the sea,
That’s where my feet leave prints to be.
I walk all the way to the end of the land,
The land that holds this beautiful sand.
The Sensations of Summer
Sibel
As I lay on the sand
And look up at the sky
I can see the sun shining like a diamond up high
The whooshing waves wash endlessly upon the shore
These are the sensations of summer that I adore
Nothing could replace this moment
Not anything
I pick myself up
Step in to the sea
Forget all my thoughts so my mind is free
As all my troubles drift away from me
I go deeper into the rushing water, letting the waves take control
These are the sensations of summer that I adore
The Beach
Amy R. Buzil
It’s a day when the ocean waves whisper to the sun:
‘Warm me up sunshine!’
And they try to throw their rays
right at me,
painting my white skin
into a golden tan.
The fingertip of the wind
brushs against my left cheek.
The clouds try hard not to move.
I see them
crawling inch by inch.
I Look down at my toes;
the hot pink nail polish;
sinks into the warm sand
the grains adjust to my movement.
Rough.
I gaze out into the water
shining like cherry-flavored lip gloss
and diamonds held in a blue blanket.
I lean back into the pinkbluepurple of the wind,
where it leaves a colorful touch on my arm
and I feel as I could blow away
at any time..
Friday Poetry : Mending the Wall, By Robert Frost
Irish Landscapes
The Wall,
Sleivenamon , Tipperary
Nigel Borrington
Mending the Wall
By Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Irish Landscape Photography : September Song
Irish Landscape Photography
Septembers Song
Nigel Borrington
Oh, it’s a long long while
From May to December
But the days grow short
When you reach September
When the autumn weather
Turns leaves to flame
One hasn’t got time
For the waiting game
Oh, the days dwindle down
To a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days
I’ll spend with you
These precious days
I’ll spend with you
Oh, the days dwindle down
To a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days
I’ll spend with you
These precious days
I’ll spend with you
These precious days
I’ll spend with you
Willie Nelson – September Song
Monday Poetry – The Eagle By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Eagle
The Eagle
Nigel Borrington
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Sunset’s Ghost – Poem by Richard George
Sunset’s Ghost – Poem by Richard George
Lilac clouds, a wash of green
At daylight’s end:
When west is dark, to northward
A heat-haze aurora
Silhouettes our roof-slopes.
Beautiful, but it chills me:
We have made her burn with fever,
The sky, our mother.
Poem By : Richard George
Mountain Poetry, Ride the foothills by : Denel Kessler
Foothills of Slievenamon
Irish Landscape images
Nigel Borrington
Denel Kessler
Chinook Skies
cobalt rain
rides the foothills
mountains conspire
in malevolent
cloud lairs
beneath gray waters
she treads
the warming sea
in constant current
scaled desire
burnished crimson
silver sleek
with ripened need
she lives to die
upstream
Nigel Borrington 
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