February - Ardoigh me mo Sheoil

Lark swings alone in the ice ...

Lark swings alone in the ice ...

First day of February ... in Ireland the first day of Spring ... I would raise my sail now, head west .... (Mise Raifteiri an File ... ) ....but soon, soon ....

"Cill Aodáin"    English translation below  

Anois teacht an earraigh

beidh an lá ag dul chun síneadh,

Is tar éis na féil Bríde

ardóidh mé mo sheol.

Ó chuir mé i mo cheann é

ní chónóidh me choíche

Go seasfaidh mé síos

i lár Chontae Mhaigh Eo.

I gClár Chlainne Mhuiris

A bheas mé an chéad oíche,

Is i mballa taobh thíos de

A thosaigh mé ag ól.

Go Coillte Mách rachaidh

Go ndéanfadh cuairt mhíosa ann

I bhfogas dhá mhíle

Do Bhéal an Átha Mhóir

Now coming of the Spring

the day will be lengthening,

and after St. Bridget's Day

I shall raise my sail.

Since I put it into my head

I shall never stay put

until I shall stand down

in the center of County Mayo.

In Claremorris' family

I will be the first night,

and in the wall on the side below it

I will begin to drink.

to Kiltimagh (Magh's Woods) I shall go

until I shall make a month's visit there

two miles close

to Aghamore.

... as the Bay freezes over

Click on  photos to view Gallery images :

Valentine Creek - Lark's dinghy ... Lark swinging her open water space in the ice ....

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.    Mary Oliver

As you set out for Ithaka

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As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
 
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
 
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
 
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
 
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
 

C.P. Cavafy

Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?cat=1&id=74

a fine mingling of letting go ... and

At the end of the day ... I move a seashell from one jar to another - and also write some gratitudes ... and something I sincerely wish to let go ... I sleep soundly ....!

At the close of day  .... move a seashell .... and write gratitudes and slips to let go .... we only have today ....  

At the close of day  .... move a seashell .... and write gratitudes and slips to let go ....

we only have today ....  

Consider this: "All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on." -Havelock Ellis

 

In the wave-strike over unquiet stones

In the wave-strike over unquiet stones
the brightness bursts and bears the rose
and the ring of water contracts to a cluster
to one drop of azure brine that falls.
O magnolia radiance breaking in spume,
magnetic voyager whose death flowers
and returns, eternal, to being and nothingness:
shattered brine, dazzling leap of the ocean.
Merged, you and I, my love, seal the silence
while the sea destroys its continual forms,
collapses its turrets of wildness and whiteness,
because in the weft of those unseen garments
of headlong water, and perpetual sand,
we bear the sole, relentless tenderness.

Pablo Neruda

 

I miss the ocean here inland .... 

Glorious August

Without humidity - how different Maryland is with "Canadian air" ! Sunflowers, butterflies, light background sound of crickets. Finished applying Cabot Semi Solid stain/seal "Milkweed" tint,   to my studio ... plus cleaned up 40 year old trim from a friend's cottage. It will live again on the gable ....

Click on the photo below ...  to view Gallery for today Sunday August 25.