Irish Landscape Photography and a Poem “Secrets of the Forest” by : Wisteria Rose
Irish Landscape Photography,
Secrets of the forest
Nigel Borrington
Secrets of the Forest
There’s a dead tree connecting the earth to my heart,
And yet it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
One silver root, and four dark leaves.
A branch is at my neck,
And there is a leaf telling me secrets,
Gently in my left ear.
There are vines strung elegantly from trunk to my teeth
And I’ll play them for you.
The rain is the beat,
It’s the same as your pulse.
My blood runs cherry with every note.
Castle Walls a Poem by Celeste Nicole Cook
Cahir Castle, County Tipperary
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Castle walls
By : Celeste Nicole Cook
Surrounded by tall walls,
so tall that it is insanity to dare climb them.
Before there used to be a gate that allowed visitors to come and go
as they please without disrupting the palace grounds
but over time the palace guard became bitter.
At first the gate was only opened for a few days,
but once those visitors left, leaving chaos and destruction behind
the palace guard became angry and was filled with rage.
With rage he destroyed the gate
and in turn built a thicker wall.
.
Replacing the beautiful craftsmanship that stood tall and proud,
with a thick grey wall that blended into the hills.
Now the remaining occupants have been imprisoned within towering walls were debris and dust has collected,
time has past and slowly the rage has been quenched.
Now the guard is contemplating whether to burn the chaos around him
and rebuild a city that shines and brings glory to all those who enter.
To build walls that can be climbed,
were children can sit once again and look out at the fields of flowering hills in the Spring.
Monday Morning , First light of day , A Poem By : Beverly Gelene
The Light from over the hill
Kilkenny Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Monday mornings, well some come easy, some others come a little harder with inspiration hard to find !!!
I am finding this Monday morning lands right between the two posts, so maybe a poem and an image or two will help to get the week moving along its way 🙂 🙂
First Light of Day
By : Gelene Beverly
Listen to the quiet peaceful dawn.
Sun touching the rim of spaces’ night.
Stars fading to brushes of paint
In whirlwinds of dusk colored breezes.
Passing away the moon’s guard
To the light of the sun’s shift begins
Now sweeping into a new day.
“Hamlet Upon Loch Fyne” , Scottish Poem by : Don MacIver
Loch Fyne, Scotland
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
In darkness of salten waters be stilled
The clouds o’er Loch Fyne hung low upon hills
Night falls gentle, Heaven by the ocean
Fishermen’s boat beneath moon drops anchor
The village at sleep, silent the sheep graze
A shallow wind drifts by our window sill
Morning’s fog creeps upon island’s meadow
In field surrounds lay thistle and snowdrop
House on the glen Castle Inverary
Majestic in caricature and lore
Wherest Gaelic Scots in fine lordly fashion
Spake proudly the moors and bonnie mountain
.
The Scotsman praise long of the fair Loch Fyne
As steeped in history, gentleman’s word
The beauty of eerie black water remains
Great mystic legend of centuries told
Midst nearby wood ruins of battle cries
Castles MacEwan and Lachlan attest
Drawn swords and gunnery of fishermen
Whose drift and trawl nets combed divided seas
In the air cast chilly a salten mist
The earth and garden Heather and Primrose
Green moor and mountain wondrous backrop scene
To waters of glass in silent refrain
From A Tree’s Point of View, a Monday poem.
Winters tree
Nigel Borrington
People pass me by without a second glance,
No one likes the ugly tree with no leaves.
My branches extend out in every which way,
Getting tangled within each other.
I look still on the outside,
Yet inside, water and nutrients course through my tissues.
I stand in wait, until the season comes,
When my arms are no longer bare and the fresh, green leaves can hide away my hideous outsides.
mdancer1399
Polk City, IA
Eternal Forest, a Poem with Images
Eternal Forest
Nigel Borrington
Eternal Forest
To long once more for that golden age
Is to be a pilgrim of spirit
Travelling through time
Paying homage to ancient ways
Long forgotten and fallen from use
To breathe new life
To reclaim identity
An awakening and rebirth
A Spiritual journey of self renewal
Undeniable birthright
Irrepressible heritage
Inseparable legacy
An honoring of the ancestors
And generations past
Like a wilting tree regrowing withered roots
To stand proud once more
In the eternal forest
The Holly-Tree , A Poem by : Robert Southey
Woodland Holly,
County Kilkenny,
Nigel Borrington
The Holly-Tree
By : Robert Southey
O reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves
Ordered by an Intelligence so wise
As might confound the Atheist’s sophistries.
Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen,
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle, through their prickly round,
Can reach to wound;
But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the Holly-tree
Can emblem see
Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme, –
One which may profit in the after-time.
Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear
Harsh and austere;
To those who on my leisure would intrude,
Reserved and rude;
Gentle at home amid my friends I’d be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
And should my youth – as youth is apt, I know, –
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I, day by day,
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.
.
And as, when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The Holly-leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree? –
So, serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem, amid the young and gay,
More grave than they;
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly-tree.
Robert Southey
The Lake, an Image and a poem by : Brian F Kirkham
The Lake, Nigel Borrington
The Lake, A poem by : Brian F Kirkham
The Lake
Calm, Clear, Cool –
The lake lies in its hole
whilst wondering in the woods
a fisherman has a goal
Sat on a chair
by the waters, still
he casts out a line
and goes for the kill
His float bobbles in the water,
awaiting a big fish
He’s hoping for a salmon,
for a suppertime dish
Finest lures he bought – on sale
and bait he uses – he hopes – prevail
the lake, keeps hidden, the whereabouts
of the big Salmon, or Lakeland trout.
The lake it seems is calm and still,
fisherman falls asleep until –
the noise under water makes him wake…
the fish are in another part of the lake.
“Snow on snow”, a Winters Poem By : James Hart
Snow on Snow
St Mary’s church
County Carlow
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Snow on snow
By : James Hart
Snow on snow
Flakes gently falling
Like leaves from a tree
Asking permission
Before they land
On the snowflakes underneath
Each one different
Like leaves on a tree
A white carpet
Pure white till soiled
By children’s shoes
They love its touch
Ooo snowball fights
Snow doesn’t hurt
Snow is soft and forgiving
People hurt
They are selfish and cruel
So let it snow
Snow on snow on
Snow on snow
Gods our Sun and its Autonomy, a Poem.
Autonomy of the Sun
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Last Night I sat down and wrote my first Poem for a while, I was sorting through some Landscape Images and found a collection that I took earlier in the year.
These images are all taken Directly into the Sun, I love to play with the effects that the sun can create in a lens.
The subject of the sun in images I also find very inspiring, its our very life force and has fascinated mankind through out our long history, in both art and all the many religions we have followed.
Sometimes I feel that to use your eyes and clear your mind and just look at the landscape in front of you, on a clear day to just look up and the sun is freedom itself ! . In these moments there is no confusion of religion or even Science, Just yourself standing and looking at the world around you !!
Gods our Sun and it’s Autonomy
As a single cloud floats by and winds coerce,
I desire alone the Sun to have such might and force.
When Gods Command the ageless trees,
a boundless cosmos is all I ask for to see.
Not simply the power of a signal God alone,
But infinite forgiving universal love,
contained forever within time and space.
A completely cosmic power,
open to all and with in the grasp of my simple mind,
open and without fear of a hidden world.
As the Stars stride through horizons and winds twist forests trees,
I only plead to be just as free.
Only the Country Lane, Poem by : Adgray
The old Country lane, County Kilkenny
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Only the Country Lane Will Weep
by Adgray
I wander down the country lane
my old dog by my side
and I whistle merrily a tune
of how the view is wide
There are no hedgerows to crowd me in
or branches to block the sky
they’d have to use machinery
to bury me when I die
So don’t bother breaking your backs for me
I’d rather blow around with ease
just add what little goodness left
across the land upon the breeze
.
For this is where my heart is
this is my back yard
I’ve roamed it all my adult life
to leave it would be hard
No city house and airs for me
my graces rough and ready made
So lay me not in a neat little row
let my spirit fly and fade
I hitch my swag a little easier
and hunker to scratch his head
the billy boils as I wait with him
and then we both to bed
The stars sing lullaby’s to us
the wind sweeps us softly as we sleep
No debts no bills to leave behind
only the country lane will weep
Kilkenny Landscape Photography : Days of rain a Poem By : Vincent Mccarty
Misty Morning on the lane.
Kilkenny Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Days of rain
vincent mccarty
May 11, 2013
i long for the days of rain;
when the air is thick,
the ground is soft,
and my mind is clear.
the drops hitting my skin
are a therapy like no other.
like fire,
they burn through my ropes,
and set me free.
i run from myself,
and fly with the wind.
too soon though,
with the puddles on the streets,
my wings vanish.
and i’m left longing
for the days of rain
once more.
Poetry By Mary Oliver : The Journey
Lifes Journey, Callan, County Kilkenny
Photography : Nigel Borrington
The Journey
Poetry
By
Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
“The Cottage” , with the freedom and the space! , A poem By : JW Harvey
The Cottage door by the lake
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Over the years I have lived in Ireland, there are many places I have visited and stayed, many cottages in remote parts of the country.The one thing most have in common is that they are so remote that for most of the weeks stay it hard to get a mobile phone signal, even for just a simple call or text.
I recently found this great poem by JW Harvey, that I think reflects on the feelings that these problems create, that moment when you realize the world will not end if you cannot get Facebook or even text a friend. What follows for most is putting on your coat and get outside into the real world and your holiday begins.
This is the moment when you realize, its this disconnect you really came for !!!!
The Cottage
JW Harvey,
Sep 25, 2013
I sat by the lake
sipping coffee and feeding the ducks.
In between breadcrumbs,
I dialed his number.
“Your call could not go through.”
I grinned;
Could not, not would not.
Long since the city summers,
.
I finally found our stillwater space:
a sense of security that felt
as serene as my remote arcadia,
disturbed only by the footstrokes
of a hungry mallard passing by.
No breadcrumbs for him.
“Call failed.”
Call failed, not I failed,
and I picked apart the stale bagel
to dip in my coffee
and feed to the ducks.
A Faithful Old Barn, a Poem By : Laura Lynch
The Barn, Bordeaux, France
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
A Faithful Old Barn
By : Laura Lynch
Apr 28, 2012
Erect and secure, yet weathered and worn
Faithfully it stood surviving the storms.
Cracking and peeling … its colors are muted
Stubbornly standing yet obviously wounded.
Absorbing abuse for those in her shelter
Unobtrusively stands against all ghostly specter.
Irish landscape photography : Monday morning sunrise at the beach – a Poem
Monday Morning at the Beach,
Monatray West, Youghal,
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Monday morning at the beach
A Monday morning Sunrise at the Beach
the soft breath of the sea air,
tickles your nose.
You feel the cool morning air,
lightly brushing your cheek.
Soft Sun light
surrounds you in a welcoming hug.
The waves nip at your toes,
you can taste the ocean,
while the moon says goodbye.
Light bursts across the beach,
the sky brightens in a joyful smile.
The clouds disappear,
as the sun dances across the waves.
A Wednesday evening Poem and Gallery : Reach
Images of Ireland
Nigel Borrington
Reach
I want to walk with you to the highest peak
then watch your eyes,
gaze out into the night sky
wide with wonder,
as they see the very stars
they hope to one day conquer
.
I want you to go and see the sights
you never imagined you’d ever see
Walk along the canals, a swim in the lakes,
Walk down rivers so clear.
.
I want you to stand
and reach for the furthest cloud,
grab at the sunshine
and trace patterns in the cold winds from the north
.
A November Sun, The Sun a Poem By : – Mary Oliver
A November Sun, County Kilkenny
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
The Sun
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early light,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
– Mary Oliver
A November Song – A winters Gallery with poems
Novembers song
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
So Halloween is over and the first of the November mornings arrives, it feels like winter here in Kilkenny at last , I wonder what the season to come will bring, Snow and ice, Rain and storms, wonderful winter walks.
We will have to wait and see I guess, for now I post some of the images taken during winters past and some great poems reflecting upon the days ahead.
A Novembers song :
“The name ‘November’ is believed to derive from ‘novem’ which is the Latin for the number ‘nine’. In the ancient
Roman calendar November was the ninth month after March. As part of the seasonal calendar November is the
time of the ‘Snow Moon’ according to Pagan beliefs and the period described as the ‘Moon of the Falling Leaves’
by Black Elk.”
“The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry’s cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a trinket on.”
– Emily Dickinson
“When the trees their summer splendor
Change to raiment red and gold,
When the summer moon turns mellow,
And the nights are getting cold;
When the squirrels hide their acorns,
And the woodchucks disappear;
Then we know that it is autumn,
Loveliest season of the year.”
– Carol L. Riser, Autumn
“The sky is streaked with them
burning hole in black space —
like fireworks, someone says
all friendly in the dark chill
of Newcomb Hollow in November,
friends known only by voices.
We lie on the cold sand and it
embraces us, this beach
where locals never go in summer
and boast of their absence. Now
we lie eyes open to the flowers
of white ice that blaze over us
and seem to imprint directly
on our brains. I feel the earth,
rolling beneath as we face out
into the endlessness we usually
ignore. Past the evanescent
meteors, infinity pulls hard.”
– Marge Piercy, Leonids Over Us
Happy Halloween from Ireland and from the Gothic Poet – Thomas Hardy.
The To-be-forgotten
Photography : Nigel Borrington
Happy Halloween to you all !
Today my post contains some images at the old estate church yard of Temple Michael, Ballynatray Estate, Cherrymount, county cork, and one of my most loved poems by Thomas Hardy, a true poet from the hight of the 1800’s Gothic period and a Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot.
So tonight when it goes dark if I were you I would light a fire, lock the doors and windows and stay inside as the time is tonight when The “soon to-be Forgotten” rise.
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.”
The Sally Gap, county Wicklow , and a poem by Wallace Stevens
Sally Gap, county Wicklow
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
The North Wind
By : Wallace Stevens
“It is hard to hear the north wind again,
And to watch the treetops, as they sway.
They sway, deeply and loudly, in an effort,
So much less than feeling, so much less than speech,
Saying and saying, the way things say
On the level of that which is not yet knowledge:
A revelation not yet intended.
It is like a critic of God, the world
And human nature, pensively seated
On the waste throne of his own wilderness.
Deeplier, deeplier, loudlier, loudlier,
The trees are swaying, swaying, swaying.”
A Scarecrow Poem.
A Scarecrow Named Hal
The Scarecrow
Walter de la Mare
All winter through I bow my head
beneath the driving rain;
the North Wind powders me with snow
and blows me black again;
at midnight ‘neath a maze of stars
I flame with glittering rime,
and stand above the stubble, stiff
as mail at morning-prime.
But when that child called Spring, and all
his host of children come,
scattering their buds and dew upon
these acres of my home,
some rapture in my rags awakes;
I lift void eyes and scan
the sky for crows, those ravening foes,
of my strange master, Man.
I watch him striding lank behind
his clashing team, and know
soon will the wheat swish body high
where once lay a sterile snow;
soon I shall gaze across a sea
of sun-begotten grain,
which my unflinching watch hath sealed
for harvest once again.
The Rainy day : Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A rainy day
Achill Island , County Mayo
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
This Morning here in Ireland is a very wet one with some 20mm of rain is expected here in county Kilkenny before midday.
So what better way to free yourself on this Autumn day than with a rainy day poem :
The Rainy Day
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
.
Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Monday Poetry : On The Winter Beach
Dookinella, Achill island, County Mayo
The Winter Beach
Irish landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
On The Winter Beach
I walk on the winter beach
from here to there
and beyond where the beach ends
past indifferent sea gulls
over beached kelps
over bleached sea shells
To the sound of crushing waves
to the call of ebbing memories
I walk on the winter beach
I shall go
I must go
alone
beyond where the beach ends
Nigel Borrington 
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