Thurles Information

Rural Rhapsody

Courtesy of Thurles Author & Poet Tom Ryan ©

I have learned to breathe with the earth,
In search of that elusiveness,
That other and beautiful birth,
Eternal happiness.

All my gruelling travail,
The sweat and the unshed tears
Are gone now, gone to the devil,
As are my life-long fears.

In a house by the trees and the fields,
Where the crows now ravish the barley.
Where the turf smoke upward soars
And late is always early.

I have shaped new–splendid dreams
And have loved an old–new vision.
The world is not what it seems
And I have learned a lesson.

We do not see for the sweat
That blurs the sight of the eye,
Fuming, forever we fret
Blind to that inward joy.

But in a home with a turf fire burning
And a woman to love the day,
I have no inward yearning
Nor any desire for the fray.

We have but a short, sweet hour
In a thought–feeling and more,
Then fade before the power
That was timeless long before.

A power so great and so awesome.
The heart can scarce withstand
Even a breath of its presence
That I have known in this land.

Where silence is still forever
And the world is a pithy thing,
Body from soul nigh sever
And strange is everything.

Fools that we worship the earth.
‘Tis but a path to home
And so, in sadness and mirth,
Go, journey, but not alone.

END

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

Christmas Memories.

Courtesy of Thurles Author & Poet Tom Ryan ©

I guess it’s a time to remember
When the snow falls to the earth
Over this great world in December,
With its sadness and its mirth.
The holly branch of memory
Adorns another time.
The toasts of happy yester-years
Now make my life sublime.

The flames from a turf fire burning
Above an open hearth,
The old songs give me yearning
For a younger time on earth.
The father went down to the corner
Which had a corner-store,
With toys and cakes and everything,
Aye and something strong for sure.

For lord ‘twas only the divil
And we all waiting there
For him to be home for the supper,
Out of the cold and frosty air.
My letter to Santa was written.
I asked for tracks and train
And hoped I’d not be forgotten
When Rudolf and Santy came.

And after an early supper
‘Twas off to bed in glee.
There’d be no sleep on Christmas Eve
Till Santa Clause I’d see.
But somehow, something peculiar,
For many a year and oft ,
I always went to slumber
And sight of the man I lost.

My sock was on a bed railing
Waiting for the dawn,
I awoke to the crackle of bacon
And church bells praised the morn.
And how I tore at that stocking
That was stitched up bewilderingly
And I got a kick and a shock
When Santa answered my plea.

How happy was everyone then,
A lifetime from today,
But in perfect harmony
Are the joys of that morn and today.
We are in a way our memories
They’re the greatest gift of all.
As the fire burns bright in the hearth
And the snowflakes softly fall.

And as I gaze at the children
Assembled in awe by the fire,
I’m as young as ever then
Though given a bit to tire.
For Christmas has never been old,
No matter what the year,
So, a toast in good warm whiskey,
With a laugh and a little tear.

Toast those before and are with us
And those to come and all
And the joy of a child at Christmas
Be with you one and all.
As the yuletide logs are burning,
And the snowflakes gently fall,
The world is a quare ould place
But don’t we love it all.
END

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

Early On A Silver Frosted Morning.

Courtesy of Thurles Author & Poet Tom Ryan ©

Early on a silver frosted morning,
After a steaming cup of tea,
In the uncle Pakie’s house out the road.
Shivering in my short trousers
At the prospect of digging the potatoes,
In the pit at the headland,
Below the fence,
With the cruel wire traps for the rabbits,
And beside the hen house,
With the eggs shining and white and brown
In all the secret haybarn places.
My nails would be sore with the frost
And the picking.
Then just when the winter had won,
Pakie would point to the cabbage patch,
Planted row by frosted row
In the garden,
And urge me; he whispering, to seek
The silver golden treasures
Of the Fairy of the Frost.
At seven I loved a secret
And so, on wondrous adventure bound,
I sought this treasure,
And in this fairy foggy morning,
After a search
Under a great big head of cabbage,
There was the brown paper bag of wonder,
With the chocolate bars
And the soft and hard papered sweets
In, oh, a myriad of magical colours.
END

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