This past weekend, I was afflicted with a sore throat and a mild headache, which I blame on Savannah’s wishy-washy weather that never fails to drive me and my immune system crazy. Nevertheless, as I am writing this column, I feel right as rain–or right as the rain that fell all day and night on Monday.
But I’d much rather deal with a minor head cold than measles–which is seemingly back with a vengeance in Texas, New Mexico, and other Southwestern states.
Words alone cannot express the dismay I feel knowing that my daily concerns in the year of our Lord 2025–measles, food rations, and global conflict–mirror ones shared by any given protagonist in an “American Girl” children’s book.
But I suppose this St. Patrick’s Day weekend can help keep my mind off such calamities I can’t control. And I hope that the weather is a bit better too, so I can read the books on my endless TBR list outside in my backyard–although the gloomy five-day forecast as of Tuesday afternoon is not giving me “pot of gold” vibes.
So in honor of all things Gaelic, here are some more poems from some renowned Irish poets.
When You Are Old, W.B. Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Innocence, Patrick Kavanagh
They laughed at one I loved The triangular hill that hung Under the Big Forth. They said That I was bounded by the whitethorn hedges Of the little farm and did not know the world.
But I knew that love’s doorway to life Is the same doorway everywhere. Ashamed of what I loved I flung her from me and called her a ditch Although she was smiling at me with violets.
But now I am back in her briary arms The dew of an Indian Summer lies On bleached potato-stalks What age am I? I do not know what age I am, I am no mortal age; I know nothing of women, Nothing of cities, I cannot die Unless I walk outside these whitethorn hedges.
Belonging, Eileen Carney Hulme
We never really slept, just buried clocks in the sanctuary of night every time I moved you moved with me, winged eyelashes on your cheek returns a kiss small spaces of silence in between borrowed breaths arms tighten at the whisper of a name all the words of the heart the unanswered questions are at this moment blue rolling waves tonight our souls rest fragrant in spiritual essence candle-flamed, undamaged utterly belonging.
The Wayfarer, Patrick Pearse
The beauty of the world hath made me sad, This beauty that will pass; Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy To see a leaping squirrel in a tree, Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk, Or little rabbits in a field at evening, Lit by a slanting sun, Or some green hill where shadows drifted by Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven; Or children with bare feet upon the sands Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets Of little towns in Connacht, Things young and happy.
And then my heart hath told me: These will pass, Will pass and change, will die and be no more, Things bright and green, things young and happy; And I have gone upon my way Sorrowful.
Anything Can Happen, Seamus Heaney
Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now He galloped his thunder cart and his horses Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth And the clogged underearth, the River Styx, The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers Be overturned, those in high places daunted, Those overlooked regarded.
Stropped-beak Fortune Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one, Setting it down bleeding on the next.
Ground gives. The heaven’s weight Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.
Andrea Gutierrez is the managing editor of the Bryan County News.
