A Poem for Thursday...Driving to Donegal

Driving to Donegal

River Bann in flood  cattle on the bank

cloud and blue patches in an Ulster sky

red barn roofs curved and corrugated

Enniskillen          Omagh              Derry

on the green road sign.   Driving west.

Telegraph wires strung out on drumlins

measuring the miles and the messages

ancient gaelic town lands   anglish form

politics noted in the colour of a flag

politics  black    green     blue     red

and white  with a bloody hand

woven together like fine Sunday linen.

Fecundity found in every hedge and tree

mother Ireland at her most fertile her

green hills swelling as ample breasts

each rowan     ash     willow and oak

hazelnuts beechnuts and acorns with

meadowsweet  knapweed  fireweed and

net fences twined about with red rosebuds

over   under   around the edges of gardens.

Geraldine Snape

Art Challenge...post one a day!

Today I've posted an edited photo taken as part of a series when we went to find Derek Jarman's cottage on the shingle in Dungeness.

"The Abandoned Boat"

What an amazing place...a wilderness of stone and sea...yet full of life with such banks of marine wild flowers and a glimpse of a hare running away from his cottage.

I may never get a chance to return...but the memories are strong and quite a bit of poetry resulted from that visit.

"The Abandoned Boat"

Wild flowers on the shingle.

 The emptiness of the landscape.

Rusting metal everywhere hidden in the maran grasses.

Sculptural rusting metals...abandoned.

...and there's more.....Cille Carthe!!

I love the colour that the pubs are painted....

...Here we are ...what fun!

More from Kilcar...

...and then the wild flowers under the ancient stone bridge with sweet smelling peaty water gently flowing down to the Atlantic a couple of miles away...

...quiet days...

Humphrey's Flowers

How can these beauties survive in the harshness of the elements on a rock face and still look so gorgeous?

Another surviver!