mdm

Beannacht   On the day when The weight deadens On your shoulders And you stumble. May the clay dance To balance you. And when your eyes Freeze behind The grey window And the ghost of loss Gets in to you, May a flock of colours, Indigo, red, green, And azure blue, Come to awaken in you A meadow of delight. When the canvas frays In the currach of thought And a stain of ocean Blackens beneath you May there come across the waters A path of yellow moonlight To bring you safely home. May the nourishment of the earth be yours May the clarity of light be yours May the fluency of the ocean be yours May the protection of the ancestors be yours And so may a slow Wind work these words Of love around you, An invisible cloak To mind your life.   John O Donohue 1997                         My favourite of his poems.   Image of Wexford copyright MDMahon

Between Nethertown and The Lane of Stones the   small white cottage shifted softly in the baking August heat.   Peggy Ellard walked out her back door and blinked. The shirts and sheets were starched by sun and salt into stiff shapes on the blue line.   She pulled them off their pegs in a sudden burst of impatience. She had barely slept and was up for first mass to drop the boys to the Island for the bus to Croke Park. All night she had been tossing and turning beside her sweating snoring husband.   Peg got up early to make a start on the packed lunch. With the young lad   gone down for a sleep wearing only his nappy, she should have had time out for an hour or so but everywhere she could see things to be done. She had stood at the door watching the hot child settle   under the breeze from the electric fan, his damp curls blowing up off the top of his head like a question mark. He was a ringer for his Da, they all were.    Now back at the line under the constant wheeesh and shush of the