When Great Trees Fall, By : Maya Angelou
When Great Trees Fall
By : Maya Angelou
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
Monday Poetry , Time along a rivers ……
Monday Poetry , Time along a rivers ……
I walk along a River of Time,
do I move or is it the waters?
Can I match its pace?
It flows by, driving my very thoughts,
without any meaning, in my reality,
for that I need to jump in !
What day is this, what hour?
this flow has no meaning,
is it without power?
A cause without effect?
For me the water flows by eternally
but
It’s end is out at sea.
I Stand aware of my place in the Universe,
forever alive, outside of good or bad,
changing form so many times,
did I not come from this water?
I cannot remember!
Neutral I stand, judging not,
Just watching this River.
It flows by,
with my fingers pushed in,
Momentarily touching me,
It’s power drives me on!
This river is all about the giver …
The Universe of power ….
The one without time…
Nigel 2015
Friday Poems : The River , Catherine, from Liverpool
Friday and this weekend is the last one of June, I plan to do some long river walks with our Dog Molly ….
What ever you do this weekend I hope you have a great time and get to escape for a while, have a great weekend !!!
The River
Catherine, Liverpool
It starts at a source as a little trickle
Then flows down the mountain,
Following a steep and narrow path.
As it rushes down it is joined by many other tributaries,
Changing it from a small, shallow stream
To a big, deep river
The water is clear and unpolluted,
Icy blue and sparkling
But always icy cold too.
It crashes as it flows,
Forming bubbling foam
That fills the air with cold white spray.
As the current pushes it on, it erodes away the rocks,
Leaving small, smooth banks
For it to easily pass by.
It deepens and widens as it runs down the mountain,
Soon entering a valley
With the sea in view.
It finally comes to its end,
An estuary leading into the sea
Ending its long journey from the mountain.
But it will start its journey again
When the sun evaporates it from the sea
And drops it down as rain.
The Little Ghost, A poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high — higher than most —
And the green gate was locked.
And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone —
I knew her by the broad white hat,
All ruffled, she had on.
By the dear ruffles round her feet,
By her small hands that hung
In their lace mitts, austere and sweet,
Her gown’s white folds among.
I watched to see if she would stay,
What she would do — and oh!
She looked as if she liked the way
I let my garden grow!
She bent above my favourite mint
With conscious garden grace,
She smiled and smiled — there was no hint
Of sadness in her face.
She held her gown on either side
To let her slippers show,
And up the walk she went with pride,
The way great ladies go.
And where the wall is built in new
And is of ivy bare
She paused — then opened and passed through
A gate that once was there.
Monday Morning Poems : “A Red, Red Rose” by : Robert Burns
A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns
My love is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June :
My love is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only love,
And fare thee weel a while !
And I will come again, my love,
Thou’ it were ten thousand mile.
Memories Of My Old Country Church – Poem by Sandra Morton
Memories Of My Old Country Church
Poem by Sandra Morton
In days of long ago, dad would hitch up Pet and, Topsy
away we’d go
To the neighborhood grocery for something to eat.
Me sitting beside dad, on that old wagon seat.
On the way we passed by this “OLD COUNTRY CHURCH”,
I always looked it over as I sat upon my perch.
For, you see, in those days we didn’t go.
But, Dad believed in God, for he told me so. Once we went
to revival, the preacher came back to talk.
I could tell Dad was going to be like old Pet and balk.
Dad told the preacher I’ll go forward if I ever feel God’s call,
but, for right now I don’t feel it’s the time at all.
The years came and went, and mom met this cousin, It’s been
years, since she’d seen him, over two dozen.
He’d become a preacher in years gone by. She ask if he’d
start up the “OLD COUNTRY CHURCH”, and he said he’d try.
Mom had been a Christian, since about twenty two, but didn’t
like to go, for the times dad went were few.
Mom made arrangements with members of the church board.
the preacher wouldn’t accept pay, many gave love offerings,
as they could afford. This was in the fall of 1955, along
about that time Grandmother died.
She was like a second mother to me, this was my first experience
with another dying. I thought my heart would break, an I’d
never stop crying. It would have helped to have known JESUS,
for, I couldn’t understand why she was taken from us.
Along, in July 1956, there was a revival, I’d decided to go,
if dad got the call, a lot got the call that night, 10 of us in all.
Relatives, neighbors, and friends. Surely God must have covered
a multitude of sins, and there, must have been joy in Heaven.
Oh! It must have been joy divine for mom to see so many baptized
on July 29. She was in failing health even then in 1956, but
what a joy, it must have been to see so many saved before the end.
Later on many more received the call. Two daughters, a brother-
in-law, and many more not family at all
The Moral of My Story is if she’d started sooner, think how many
more stars might have been in her crown of Glory.
In 1976, Mom was called to that far and distant land. At the age,
of 57, why?, I could never understand, surely Gods work through
her was done, and her crown of victory won.
Monday Poetry , Canal Life, By : Ian McMillan
Ian McMillan
Canal Life
The canal tells you stories
The canal sings you songs
They hang in that space
Between memory and water
Once saw a narrowboat raised up,
Like it was cutting through the air,
Between two grass walls and the road below
Like it was sliding through history,
And a tiny vole swam across the water
So a tiny vole swam through history.
The canal tells you stories
The canal sings you songs
Once saw a man floating belly up in a canal
Like he was in the bath. He shouted
‘This is the life’ as I passed by on a narrowboat;
The sky was reflected in the surface
And we tied up in the places the map never showed us,
The man floating by, making ripples on the surface.
They hang in that space
Between memory and water
Once got waved at by a jogger as I stood gongoozling
On the towpath; her running gave rhythm
To the early afternoon, dog-strollers and kids
Who’d rather be here than sitting in school.
To gongoozle is to stand and watch narrowboats pass
And a canal is a lesson, a water-based school.
The canal tells you stories
The canal sings you songs
Once these canals were information highways
If coal and iron can be information,
And I think they can be. And there are bridges,
Pub gardens, the laughter of children
As they walk by the water; and the canals
Turn us all into curious children.
They hang in that space
Between memory and water
Once is never enough for a canal, I reckon;
You need to go back and see it again,
And sail it again, and smell it again, and
Touch it again; canals run through our veins
Like they stroll through this country
Like blood through our veins.
The canal tells you stories
The canal sings you songs
They hang in that space
Between memory and water
“The unquiet spirit of a dandelion plume”, Ellen Mackay Hutchinson Cortissoz
Dandelion
By : Ellen Mackay Hutchinson Cortissoz
In the meadow-grass
The innocent white daisies blow,
The dandelion plume doth pass
Vaguely to and fro, –
The unquiet spirit of a flower
That hath too brief an hour.
River Bend , A poem by: Rania Moallem
River Bend
A poem by: Rania Moallem
I believe I’ve waited too much that
patience poured wild enough to
drown me at the verge of that river
bend, where I pointlessly dwell,
where you never pass by.
And the confusion I lastly saw in your eyes
perhaps was dusk and ashes of burnt
thoughts you’ve had about me, or was it
plain puzzlement…
I wonder.
For I had you hunting me at night again
waking up breathless to find you clinging to
the last gasp of air I relief with despair,
right before I fight to sleep again.
It might be the right time to move on.
Past this rivers bend …….
Ruin a Poem By S. A. J. Bradley

Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Ruin
Wondrous the stone of these ancient walls, shattered by fate.
The districts of the city have crumbled.
The work of giants of old lies decayed.
Roofs are long tumbled down,
The lofty towers are in ruins.
Frost covers the mortar,
Tiles weathered and fallen, undermined by age.
The original builders are long in the earth’s cruel grip,
generations since have passed.
These broad walls, now reddened and lichen-aged, brown and gray:
once they withstood invading kingdoms.
Now, beneath countless seasons, they have fallen.
The rampart assembled by many, crumbles still,
Though hewn together with skill of sharpening and joining,
Strengthened ingeniously with chain and cabled rib-walls.
In the town, urbane buildings, bathhouses, lofty rooftops,
a multitude gathered.
Many a hall filled with humans
until Fate inexorably changed everything.
All the inhabitants succumbed to pestilence.
Swept away are the great warriors.
Their towers and walls are deserted,
the desolate place crumbles away.
Who could repair any of it,
for they are long dead.
So the courtyards and gates have collapsed,
and the pavilion roofs of vaulted beams crumbled.
Here where once men in resplendent clothes, proud, gazed upon their gold and silver treasure,
their gems and precious stones,
upon their wealth, and property:
the bright city of a broad kingdom.
Stone courtyards ran streams of ample water, heating the great bathes,
conveniently flowing into the great stone vats …
The Old Lane Through The Woods – Poem by jim hogg , Kilkenny Landscape photography
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
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
From Blossoms, Poem By : Li-Young Lee
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
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
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
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.
“MAY” a Poem by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
May
by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
I cannot tell you how it was;
But this I know: it came to pass–
Upon a bright and breezy day
When May was young, ah pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last eggs had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird forgone its mate.
I cannot tell you what it was;
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
With all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and grey.
On The Beach – A Poem by Michael Williams
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.









































A vote for All the colors of the Rainbow, Ireland’s same-sex marriage referendum. May 22nd 2015
All the colours of the Rainbow
Nigel Borrington
This Friday (May 22nd) Ireland votes in a referendum for same-sex marriage and its a big moment for this country !!!
I don’t usually comment here , if at all about social of political issues , this is my area of personal escape in many ways from these areas !!!
However by posting one of my rainbow images here , I hope I make it very clear what I am thinking !!!
We as a race (HUMAN RACE!!!) need everyone – all ( colors, shapes and sizes ) and this involves everyone being equal and thus having the same rights in all areas of life !!!
Details of the vote
SO Clearly I will be Voting YES!!!! 🙂 🙂
Rainbow Colors
by Sharon MacDonald
A rainbow of colors,
In the light, after rain.
There are seven of them,
And, each one has a name.
Red is the first
Rainbow color in the sky.
Orange is next
Like jack-o-lantern pie.
Yellow is the third,
Lemons come to mind.
Color four is green,
Think of grassy hills to climb
Blue is color five,
Like the water in a lake
The sixth is indigo
Blue-gray blends that you can make.
Violet is the color
Of the last rainbow band.
Violet is flowery;
Like the pedals in your hand.
So, wave your arms above you
Cast your colors high
And, try to make a rainbow
Across a cloudy sky
Free the alternatives of life !!!!!
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May 20, 2015 | Categories: Comment, Landscape, Nature and Wildlife, Solo images | Tags: Civil Marriage, Civil Partnership, Colors of life, Ireland, Irish photography, Nigel Borrington, poems, poetry, rainbow, Rainbow Colors, same-sex marriage, Sharon MacDonald | 13 Comments