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Away From It All

Away From It All

Poem Courtesy of Thurles Author & Poet Tom Ryan ©

So, alone and happy in the world,
We two in a rustic wilderness
Can listen to the wind
And its tale of the centuries.
The present and its ephemeral importance
Can be forgotten in this old house,
Cherishing its own quiet wisdom.
The years are great teachers.
Man’s yearning is a whisper
In a tumultuous and eternal sea.
Hear the wind sigh and breathe,
All is vanity.

END

Tom Ryan, “Iona”, Rahealty, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.

March 30th, 2020 | Category: Poetry | 2 comments | |

To Daffodils – Robert Herrick

Today, Friday, 27th March 2020, should have been “Daffodil Day“.

Normally, today would have been a day when communities all over Tipperary and indeed Ireland, congregated to support people and families affected by the scourge of cancer.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic now raging across Ireland, it has become necessary to cancel such gatherings to protect lives. So, for those who can, why not connect with the link shown HERE and donate to help fund the Irish Cancer Society’s vital services and research.

“To Daffodils”
By 17th-century English Lyric Poet and Cleric, Robert Herrick

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain’d his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray’d together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,
Ne’er to be found again.
END

March 27th, 2020 | Category: Community News, Gardening, Health, Poetry | One comment | |

Thurles Primroses

Extract from Poem ‘Home, Wounded‘
By Sydney Thompson Dobell

There blows
The first primrose,
Under the bare bank roses.
There is but one,
And the bank is brown,
But soon the children will come down,
The ringing children come singing down,
To pick their Easter posies,
And they’ll spy it out, my beautiful,
Among the bare brier-roses;
And when I sit here again alone,
The bare brown bank will be blind and dull,
Alas for Easter posies!

March 26th, 2020 | Category: Gardening, Poetry | One comment | |

THE FORGE – Seamus Heaney

THE FORGE

By the Late, Great, Poet, Playwright and Translator, Seamus Heaney

All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end and square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music.
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows.

The End

March 6th, 2020 | Category: Community News, Poetry | Leave a comment | |

A Poem For Polling Day

A Poem For Polling Day

Poem Courtesy of Thurles Author & Poet Tom Ryan ©

I’ll cast my vote for A, – no B.
Then maybe I should go for C ?
Or D or E?
We’ll see!
They’re all the bleeding one to me.
But what if I don’t vote at all,
And sit and just plain watch it all?
The worst of two or four or three
Will do the devil, just you see.
Or worse, we’ll have rank anarchy.
And so I’ll vote for one and all,
And then I’ll boo them in the Dáil,
Independents, Labour, FF, FG
And thus ensure democracy.
I’m only just a common man,
But on polling day I’m superman,
Not fooled by promises of jam,
And so I’ll vote accordingly.
My number one and two and three
Will go to one who’s best for me!
I’ve sized them up, oh, what a lark,
They all should be in Phoenix Park,
As half of them are in the dark.
The others blind, you see.
End

Tom Ryan, “Iona”, Rahealty, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.

January 13th, 2020 | Category: Community News, Poetry | One comment | |
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