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

A ,Bitter Week.

We spent four wonderful days on the east coast last week....Suffolk and Norfolk.

We were there to deliver stock to some galleries in Southwold and Snape Maltings. That's the ceramic stock made by the potter here at The Potters House Penketh.

But also to attend some of the organised workshops and readings at The Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.

A real feast of poetic words and thoughts.

Then to cap a great weekend we drove north to Norwich and UEA, to take the eldest grandgirl out for a meal....all students need treats from grandparents!

So late evening after saying our goodbyes we set off for the journey north.

My head was full of the new poetry and poets we had heard....and the news we listened to as we drove was full of the thoughts of the soon to be decided presidential race for The White House.

The euphoria of the four days slipped away little by little as reality arrived as if brought down from the cold north by the chill winds that blew.

The vacuum of this moment in history....will soon be filled with one or 'tother...and we ourselves will soon be either in or out apparently of whatever we have been part of!!

After Auden

And so the leaves fall

And in the chill wind fall fast.

For on the long ride back north

Winter arrived in bitterness.