The River Walk
Nikon D7000, 28mm f2.8 lens, iso 100
River Suir, Clonmel, County Tipperary
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
The River Walk
By : Joshua Bosworth
Further up the river shall we go
The tangled trees above, mirrored below.
Throwing rocks, watching as the ripples spread
on Into our lives.
Nikon D7000, 28mm f2.8 lens, iso 100
River Suir, Clonmel, County Tipperary
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
The thoughts within our head,
Fleeting moments as what stirs behind us
Embraced in a silence, no one can find us
Swinging, past, present, new laughs, old memory’s
faint whispers of a future, soon we’ll see.
Come further up the river with me.
.
Sunday evenings, time for some sunset thinking.
Fujifilm x100, 35mm lens, iso 100
Lower Lake of Killarney, County Kerry
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Sunday evenings are to myself the end of another week, they mark a time to clear your mind. To think about a new week and to define the end of the last, what-ever happened last week (good or bad) has gone.
It time for some ……..
Sunset Thinking
Do you ever watch the sunset
And just sit and think about things
Just you and the sky and darkness
Giving your thoughts some wings
Perhaps you’ve got some troubles
And don’t know what to do
Or you just plain need to get away
To spend a little time with you
Sunset beauty makes you feel as though
Your life has meaning after all
To see a sight so extraordinary
Makes you feel capable, strong and tall
It’s funny how flashes of color
Like a sunset or sunrise can inspire
It can calm your inner self a bit
It’s a scene you can never tire
The serenity gives you a chance
To put things in perspective
Life can be overwhelming at times
And a sunset can be reflective
So when the sky lights up next time
Let your gaze do some drinking
Soak up all the amazing sights
And do some sunset thinking!
Written by : Marilyn Lott
I walked through an ancient path, woodland poems
Fujifilm x100, 35mm focus length, iso 800
Kilkenny woodlands
Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
A woodland walk
I walked through ancient paths,
where hidden mysteries lay
beneath our feet
and a choir of birds sing out loud,
with jewels dancing in the air.
Scrunching feet walk along
the twisting paths which
zigzag their way through
tall giants. Giants who
stand next to us.
While stepping on the
bones of the past,
sweet smells turn orange to red.
The giants form a roof with windows.
Sheltering the emerald flowers that
dapple the green carpet.
Spider webs shimmer like silver silk
as they whisper their secrets.
I walked those ancient paths.
………………………
A Woodland Walk
I took a walk today,
where the trees like giants,
held up the sky.
The breeze tickled the leaves
Many people have walked
on these ancient paths,
Discovering hidden secrets,
Foxes hiding in the shadows,
birds calling from the tree tops.
I took a walk today
and passed a trickling stream,
Where leaves crunched underfoot.
Water ran over boulders,
as it tumbled down the bank.
In the dappled shade,
jewel like light hits the ground.
Flies hang in the air, dancing.
What a wonderful walk!
Spirit
Spirit
Wading in a river of beauty and vibrant light,
A stream of emotion where words have no sound,
In silence of feelings so ‘noisily’ present,
Invading the ‘space’, no invite, but welcomed.
In colours of raindrops entering Whole,
Captivates, Inspires, Instils formless form,
Facets of dreamtimes, of Faeries and wishes,
The Drum-Beat ‘awakens’ the feelings of Calm.
Dancing in a river of beauty and vibrant light,
A waterfall of emotion where words feel no force,
An earthquake of feelings so tenderly entered,
Accepted in Space, invited and warm.
Poem By : Ri
Pagan’s and the Immortal Spirit
Pagan’s have a belief in the immortality of the spirit and in the unending cycles of the Seasons and life itself: birth, death, and rebirth. They believe that the spirit is nature itself. Life and its Spirit is in every part of everything that surrounds us, it cannot be separated from it. Pagan God’s take their form as a part of this, they have to respect life and nature just like we do. Even though they control individual elements they cannot ignore all the other gods and their elements in doing so.
Images from the river bank – river Suir county Tipperary
Sigma sd15, 15-30mm f3.5-4.5 lens, iso 50, tripod mounted.
Images from the banks of the river suir, clonmel, County Tipperary
Landscape photogrpahy by , Nigel Borrington
The River Suir that runs through county Tipperary and Waterford before reaching the sea at the ring of hook and the hook head light house is one of Ireland most Beautiful rivers in the country, many people have painted, photographed and written book on this river.
These images are from a walk I took last evening with Molly our Golden retriever.
I found this poem from a local woman, living in Carrick-on-suir
A Personal Poem by Maura Murphy
Published on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Maura Murphy, Collins Park, Carrick-on-Suir while a patient at Waterford Regional Hospital recently, penned the following poem about her adopted home- town and the river Suir that flows through it.
River of Memories Reflector of Light / Timeless, Endless, Hidden Might / I Recall Happy Walks, Children in Tow / Watching the Fishermen, Swans in a Row / Throw Sticks in the Water, Who’ll Win the Race / In Summer the Swimmers Showing their Pace / You are the Town, You Gave it it’s Name / All Gained from your Bounteous Supply of Free Game / The Trout and the Salmon Kept Starvation at Bay / Put Food on the Table for Many each Day / As You go on Your Journey, From Source to the Sea / I Thank You for the Joy You Have Brought to Me / For the Picnics, the Laughter, the Fun and the Games / In my Happy Memory They ever Remain.
The river Suir Wiki
Sigma sd15, 15-30mm f3.5-4.5 lens, iso 50, tripod mounted.
Images from the banks of the river suir, clonmel, County Tipperary
Landscape photogrpahy by , Nigel Borrington
Sigma sd15, 15-30mm f3.5-4.5 lens, iso 50, tripod mounted.
Images from the banks of the river suir, clonmel, County Tipperary
Landscape photogrpahy by , Nigel Borrington
The To-be-forgotten By Thomas Hardy
The To-be-forgotten
By Thomas Hardy
.
I
I heard a small sad sound,
And stood awhile among the tombs around:
“Wherefore, old friends,” said I, “are you distrest,
Now, screened from life’s unrest?”
II
—”O not at being here;
But that our future second death is near;
When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
And blank oblivion comes!
III
“These, our sped ancestry,
Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
Nor shape nor thought of theirs can you descry
With keenest backward eye.
IV
“They count as quite forgot;
They are as men who have existed not;
Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;
It is the second death.
V
“We here, as yet, each day
Are blest with dear recall; as yet, can say
We hold in some soul loved continuance
Of shape and voice and glance.
VI
“But what has been will be —
First memory, then oblivion’s swallowing sea;
Like men foregone, shall we merge into those
Whose story no one knows.
VII
“For which of us could hope
To show in life that world-awakening scope
Granted the few whose memory none lets die,
But all men magnify?
VIII
“We were but Fortune’s sport;
Things true, things lovely, things of good report
We neither shunned nor sought … We see our bourne,
And seeing it we mourn.”
By the lake, a poem
Sigma SD15, 18-50mm lens, iso 50
Irish landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
By the lake : By Jon Coe
I watched the ripples, as I drifted away
the lake was deep, on this golden day
Lured by reflection, in this tranquil deep
I lost my mind, then I fell asleep
Trees were talking, murmured rustling leaves
sunlight glistened, on catkin weaves
Dragonflies, and fish that spawn
could not awake me, from this dawn
.
I floated far and I drifted near
there was no time, as was not fear
Taken away, on this autumn noon
stars were shining, behind the moon
When crickets struck their evening call
the bullfrog chirped, his sombre all
And as the sunset shone, upon this land
the moon took me quietly, by the hand
I stretched and weeped, the night, it fell
I returned my spirit, to this inspired shell
The lake, my friend, shall always be
my place of relaxation, next to, and within me
Image from the Waterford coast.
Sigma SD15, 18-50mm lens,iso 50
Waterford coastline, June 2013
Irish landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Last evening I went for a drive and stopping the car, I walked along the Waterford coastline. At some point I sat down and looked at the views. Just taking some time to really look!, we spend most of our life’s thinking and talking, watching tv and living other peoples life’s not our own.
Maybe! we should find a space, a space for our own life’s, a space in which we can grow something called “a mind of our own….”, this isn’t a sin! to give yourself time, to be individual.
So then, a Poem
Cool sea laps against the rocks,
following the sands of time,
Sometimes the sea seems suspended like a clear mirror reflecting peace
and sometimes the sea rages, undeniable in it’s quest to never cease.
People can gaze upon it and think they have found a reason to exist,
others gaze and see themselves and begin a peace with tomorrow.
But only the waters of the sea’s stay
yet the tides come and go and seem to show time drifting away.
One picture is not enough nor will any amount,
as the sea is all of them and none of them, calm and smooth or angry and rough.
It keeps the wheels of the world turning more than a single life,
as it will always be their giving life and gaining the respect it always should.
Time and space ….
Security – A Poem by : William Stafford
Nikon D700, 200mm focus length, iso 200
The Island off Ballymacoda, county cork, Ireland
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Security
Tomorrow will have an island. Before night
I always find it. Then on to the next island.
These places hidden in the day separate
and come forward if you beckon.
But you have to know they are there before they exist.
Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island.
So far, I haven’t let that happen, but after
I’m gone others may become faithless and careless.
Before them will tumble the wide unbroken sea,
and without any hope they will stare at the horizon.
So to you, Friend, I confide my secret:
to be a discoverer you hold close whatever
you find, and after a while you decide
what it is. Then, secure in where you have been,
you turn to the open sea and let go.
William Stafford
Merge – (a poem by : Kadambari Kashyap)
Sigma Sd15, 18-50 f2.8 lens, iso 50
Spirit of place, public sculpture, County Kilkenny
Photography by : Nigel Borrington
Poem By : Kadambari Kashyap.
When our spirits merge…
I or You won’t be there anymore,
But us.
There won’t be anyone talking,
Rather our souls would sing in
Ecstatic harmony.
In a language unknown.
When our spirits merge
There will be nothing left
But we will burn
As the sun and stars do every moment.
When our spirits merge
All things will come to an end
But to start again.
In a new form
In a new desire…
And as we make way for something new
In our sweet surrender
To each other
we will be healed
healed of the entire past
of me, you and the rest…
In that surrender, something
Will be on fire, death will inevitably
Consume it.
And soon after that
Divine creativity will bloom out
When our spirits will burn and merge.
Sunset on the River
Sunset on the River
Jan Weeratunga, South Africa
Reds, pinks, oranges and gold’s catch the edge of the clouds and slowly turn the evening sky into a canvas waiting to be painted.
The sun’s last ray’s bounce off the cloud’s lining as it sinks gradually beyond the horizon.
Playfully the rays dance off the shimmering surface of the river,
Another fish jumps from the water,
Sending a concertina of ripples to the riverbank’s shoreline.
Golden waves approach as the setting sun sinks slowly below the horizon,
And small waves lap the side of our boat in an unending regular rhythm.
The repetitive knocking of the fender against the hull takes on the beat of the river,
Tapping the boat and shoreline alike,
It’s constant rhythm disturbed only by the wake of a passing boat or water bird landing on its surface.
Crickets join in with their own percussion as the melody is taken up by the surrounding birdlife,
Each chorus, their evening song as they head along the river bank in search of their nights roost.
Insects buzz over the surface, darting this way and that,
As swallows swoop swiftly, snapping them up in their gaping beaks.
Against the Western horizon a kingfisher dives into calmer waters bathed in a glorious warm orange light.
To the East the night’s first star is born,
It shimmers and shivers into life,
Just as the river serenely falls to sleep.
Peace is coming to the river as the ‘time between times’ –
That suspended few minutes of sunset –
Links all things in this world in a glorious golden moment before darkness descends.
Gradually the river slips into sleep
And the moon begins to rise and perform her dance across the waters glassy surface;
Replacing her brothers golden rays with her own silver ones.
Silver shimmering light bathes all beneath it,
Only disturbed by an occasional fish breaking free of its watery surrounds,
To be touched and blessed by the moonlight,
Before diving back down to the river bed.
The moon arches across the night sky,
Playing with the stars,
Until her brothers warming rays tell her it is once again time to allow the miracle of night and day to exchange places.
.
At first only a thin glowing red streak spreads along the tree line,
But quickly the shades of red are replaced by orange and then yellow,
And as the sun wakes from its nights slumber,
Dawn summons us from sleep,
And the tempo of waves against the boats hull increase with the blaze of activity that is engulfing the river,
And the throbbing beat signals a new day is beginning.
The bronze crabs of Galway bay
Nikon D700, 105mm macro lens, iso 400
Crab shell at Galway bay
Nature photography, Kilkenny photographer : Nigel Borrington
I came across these grab shells on a beach at the far end of Galway bay last year and there were hundreds of them, crabs molt their shells every time they have out grown them, some people think that this is at the turn of a new moon.
A Poem :
A Green Crab’s Shell
by Mark Doty
Not, exactly, green:
closer to bronze
preserved in kind brine,
something retrieved
from a Greco-Roman wreck,
patinated and oddly
muscular. We cannot
know what his fantastic
legs were like–
though evidence
suggests eight
complexly folded
scuttling works
of armament, crowned
by the foreclaws’
gesture of menace
and power. A gull’s
gobbled the center,
leaving this chamber
–size of a demitasse–
open to reveal
a shocking, Giotto blue.
Though it smells
of seaweed and ruin,
this little traveling case
comes with such lavish lining!
Imagine breathing
surrounded by
the brilliant rinse
of summer’s firmament.
What color is
the underside of skin?
Not so bad, to die,
if we could be opened
into this–
if the smallest chambers
of ourselves,
similarly,
revealed some sky.
Nikon D700, 105mm macro lens, iso 400
Crab shell at Galway bay
Nature photography : Nigel Borrington
Adult Tanner crab mating
Crabs (and other crustaceans) cannot grow in a linear fashion like most animals. Because they have a hard outer shell (the exoskeleton) that does not grow, they must shed their shells, a process called molting. Just as we outgrow our clothing, crabs outgrow their shells. Prior to molting, a crab reabsorbs some of the calcium carbonate from the old exoskeleton, then secretes enzymes to separate the old shell from the underlying skin (or epidermis). Then, the epidermis secretes a new, soft, paper-like shell beneath the old one. This process can take several weeks.
Monday morning
Nikon D700, iso 100
Monday Morning sky over kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
Monday morning and well its a slow one in my mind anyway, empty of plans and reasons to get going and I don’t truly know why.
So maybe its time to go hunting for a poem or two and have a Monday morning coffee :
Monday Morning Coffee
Most people don’t look forward to Monday mornings…
I do.
It’s the start of something new…
It’s a clean slate
I like my Monday morning ritual
I wake up extra early.
Well,
It’s early for me.
I get ready for work.
Nikon D700, iso 100
Monday Morning sky over kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
Hopeful,
That it will be a pretty good week.
I don’t even have to ask anymore
An extra large coffee waits for me
And a
Perfect
Cloud
Melt in your mouth
Beautiful in it’s simplicity
Glazed Doughnut
Friendly faces and a delicious treat
It’s a great way for me to start my week..
My Monday morning
Look forward to it treat.
A Dad I Didn’t Even Get To Meet
Nikon D7000, 18-200mm vr2 lens, iso 100
A chair for the dad I did’t even get to meet
Nigel Borrington
A Poem by : Brandy poole
I never even knew you
but deep inside I knew
you were out there waiting
for me to find you
days and months past
years flew by too
till that day
I finally found you
the grass was so green
the dirt so rich
there stood your headstone
with your name engraved in it
I couldn’t believe
to my surprise
you lay to rest
oh dear, oh my!!
my father so dear
I’m too late
God has taken you
to heaven above
I cried so softly
for my dad I never knew
oh why oh why
please tell me what to do
so many questions not answered
the things wanted to say
please God tell me
why did you take my daddy away
…
Friends
A friend indeed! : Nandi Mhlongo
I have a friend, a friend in word & a friend indeed.
A friend who loves me with all friends being & I love friend too.
My friend rejuvenates me
A friend of my youth,
A friend indeed!
I have a friend in word, my friend reminds me of my purpose in life
I can exhale with my friend by my side
My friend is good to me
A friend indeed!
When my friend is gone, I miss my friend already
But my friend has gone home because I am home for now
But the truth is our home is in our friendship.
I have a friend, a friend indeed!
My friend in word is my friend indeed and my friend in need.
Friendship is all we need & we have.
I have a friend a friend indeed!
Nikon D700, 24mm focus length, iso 100
National Botanic Gardens, Dublin
Nigel Borrington
All images Taken at the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin 2012
Morning meditations, in a foggy kilkenny landscape
Nikon D200, 50mm f1.4 lens, iso 1600
Fog over a Kilkenny Farm
Kilkenny Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Morning meditation
I find nothing to fill the emptiness,
Of a very cold grey moment
In the endless time of my waking up attempts,
When feeling is painful and the morning is fogged,
Time comes and goes as I try to understand,
Understanding becomes big, huge as a true thing can be,
Truth is relative they say,
Points of view and ways to see,
Interacting is so self defined,
Perceptions float when empty seems deathlike,
Silence in and out is not necessarily peace,
Nothing is rational in a sleepy fogged mind,
But the sun has no fault for this,
So,
I decide to get up from my warm bed,
In a fogged, cold, grey and empty morning,
Carry on my sleepy, fogged mind,
With the conviction this certainly is a different day.
By : Mirela Kapaj
Rosebuds of May
Nikon D700, 50mm f1.4 lens
White rosebuds and flowers
Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
I love this time of year, our hedgerow is coming alive with all kinds of life, these white wild roses are just one wonderful example.
Nikon D700, 50mm f1.4 lens
White rosebuds and flowers
Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
When these Roses come out each year they are always wonderful to look at but they last such a short time, I would love it if they flowered all summer…
A Poem by :Robert Herrick
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he’s a-getting
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer:
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.
Then, be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
Nikon D700, 50mm f1.4 lens
White rosebuds and flowers
Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Nikon D700, 50mm f1.4 lens
White rosebuds and flowers
Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
The Lake (Edgar Allan Poe)…
Fujifilm X100
The Vee – Clogheen, Tipperary
Irish landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
The Lake
In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide earth a spot
The which I could not love the less —
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that tower’d around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody —
Then — ah then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight —
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define —
Nor Love — although the Love were thine.
Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining —
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.
Edgar Allan Poe’s poem: The Lake
Misty Monday
Canon G1x
Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Misty Morning
In the misty morning
before the sun begins to rise
the world seems at peace with itself
right before our eyes.
No raised voices
to spoil our waking day,
just a sheltered silence
and the world seems
a million miles away.
In the misty morning
before the sun begins to rise.
David Harris
That Misty Monday feeling, you know you have to get going but that track looks really misty on a Monday morning!
So a poem then !
I walk at the lands edge
Nikon D700
Poem by : Kathleen Jamie
I walk at the land’s edge,
turning in my mind
a private predicament.
Today the sea is indigo.
Thirty years an adult –
same mind, same
ridiculous quandaries –
but every time the sea
appears differently: today
a tumultuous dream,
flinging its waves ashore –
Nikon D700
Nothing resolved,
I tread back over the bog
– but every time the bog
appears differently: this evening,
tufts of bog-cotton
unbutton themselves in the wind
– and then comes the road
so wearily familiar
the old shining road
that leads everywhere
Nikon D700
.
Empty Old Houses.
Fuji Film X100
By : David Whalen
Empty old houses can talk…
But one must know how to listen…
to hear them
Empty old houses have stories…
But one must be eager to listen…
to hear them
Empty old houses can suffer..
But one must have empathy …
To feel it
Empty old houses can feel pain
But one must be able to bear it …
To feel it
Empty old houses have memories
But one must believe … that they have…
To share them
Empty old houses contain people’s lives
But one must believe…that they do…
To share them
Empty old houses can seem dead and deserted
But one must know that they’re not..
To know them
Empty old houses can teem with life’s pleasures
But one must walk through
to sense the aura of life
Empty old houses abound in life’s treasures
But one cannot help but…
To admire them
Train to Dublin
– Louis MacNeice
Nikon Fm2n
Nikon 50mm f1.4 lens
Kodak film
Our half-thought thoughts divide in sifted wisps
Against the basic facts repatterned without pause,
I can no more gather my mind up in my fist
Than the shadow of the smoke of this train upon the grass –
This is the way that animals’ lives pass.
The train’s rhythm never relents, the telephone posts
Go striding backwards like the legs of time to where
In a Georgian house you turn at the carpet’s edge
Turning a sentence while, outside my window here,
The smoke makes broken queries in the air.
The train keeps moving and the rain holds off,
I count the buttons on the seat, I hear a shell
Held hollow to the ear, the mere
Reiteration of integers, the bell
That tolls and tolls, the monotony of fear.
At times we are doctrinaire, at times we are frivolous,
Plastering over the cracks, a gesture making good,
But the strength of us does not come out of us.
It is we, I think, are the idols and it is God
Has set us up as men who are painted wood,
And the trains carry us about. But not consistently so,
For during a tiny portion of our lives we are not in trains,
The idol living for a moment, not muscle-bound
But walking freely through the slanting rain,
Its ankles wet, its grimace relaxed again.
Poem by : Louis MacNeice
Full version of the Poem
The Fruit Garden Path
Fuji X100
Landscape photography, Nigel Borrington
The Fruit Garden Path by Amy Lowell
The path runs straight between the flowering rows,
A moonlit path, hemmed in by beds of bloom,
Where phlox and marigolds dispute for room
With tall, red dahlias and the briar rose.
Tis reckless prodigality which throws
Into the night these wafts of rich perfume
Which sweep across the garden like a plume.
Over the trees a single bright star glows.
Dear garden of my childhood, here my years
Have run away like little grains of sand;
The moments of my life, its hopes and fears
Have all found utterance here, where now I stand;
My eyes ache with the weight of unshed tears,
You are my home, do you not understand?
Last Night as I was sleeping
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
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 error!—
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 error!—
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 error!—
that it was life I had
here inside my heart.
Antonio Machado
Nigel Borrington 
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