simply life and death

I am back from Malaga, Nerja, Granada, Sierra Nevada and Alicante. I made a discovery while driving across the country. In My Fair Lady, the song ‘the rain in spain stays mainly on the ‘plane’ does not refer to an aircraft. It seems Spain is formed of mountains, sea and plains and the rain stays in the plain. This makes a lot more sense. Even as a child, I could never understand how it stayed on the plane.

Not that I had any rain last week, in the mountains or in the plains. But on the way there, there was tummy turning turbulence on my plane. A child cried out ‘Mummy, make it stop. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.’ Imagine having the desire, fear, freedom and faith to call that out. Anyway, mummy did what was necessary and we all lived.

Conversely, a day after I was home, I discovered that a colleague poet of mine from Galway whom I liked and very much respected died of a sudden heart attack while swimming in the sea in Spain. I was shocked. The day before I had been swimming in the sea near Alicante, and was overwhelmed with the glory and sensuousness of the salt, water, waves. I wrote a draft ditty later that evening. It has no title.

Waves of water, surf, sand

submerge emerge converge

Salt pricks my pores

stains my lips

sea rushes my depths

straddles my hair

lays me out

I am grains of sand

beached.

I danced to the beat of my heart.

It is not worked on. They are words only. I wish they were better. But they belong to Kevin O’Shea. May he rest in peace.

“Recognise the World in a Different Way”

‘Where the Wind Sleeps’, Noel Monahan’s latest volume of poetry, was launched last night in Cavan. People flowed up the Court House steps and into the council chamber. People rushed for seats but some had to make do with sitting on the sideboards, standing at the back, or squatting in the aisles. What an accolade to a local poet and to the Arts in Cavan. Lovely poems too! I haven’t read them all yet, but what I liked, as I browsed, is seeing Cavan and its people peering out at me from its pages. I have lived in the County fifteen years and have travelled across it widely, so am well versed in its natural beauty and geography. I respond to the references to the town lands, I know the people, the mountains, the music. In Galway last year, Doire Press published short stories set in the city. I loved it. It is fun to read about characters roaming the familiar streets. Noel has done a similar thing through this volume of poetry.

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world,” Philip Pullman.

Isn’t that right? Our lives become a series of stories and or poems. Stories weave our history and our shared imagination precedes our future. Words describe us, form our thinking, shape our ability to respond to each other. I wonder if our ham fisted use of it, our often lazy construction of sentences, the screaming hysteria of headlines and media leads the way to chaos and breakdown. Maybe. That is why we must delve, search, seek and use our language effectively.

Words are so important. I was on a ‘facilitative leadership’ course this week. I have facilitated and led groups for a long time. This course was very interesting. By naming the different segments of the facilitation process, and thereby specifically defining the work, I was able to appreciate and understand the job I have been doing, almost blindly, for 30 years. It gave the work and myself a value. However, you can go over the top too. Instead of being given an assignment, or homework, between sessions, I was given an ‘evening opportunity’!

Gerard Smyth, from Poetry Ireland, did a wonderful introduction to Noel Monahan’s volume, ‘Where the Wind Sleeps’. I wish I had his command of the English language. Poetry, he said, makes us recognise the world in a different way. That is a wonderful description of poetry. To enjoy a poem we have to see its kindred spirit, it may not reflect our own experience, but it must make us recognise the world.

The poets and writers who read their work this week at the first session of AT The Edge, Cavan made us recognise the world in a different way. Shane Connaughton read an excerpt from his current work in play, as did June Caldwell. Both reflected the edgy experience, pathos and humour of emigration. Michael Farry brought us firmly home to Ireland again with his poems, also full of quiet humour, and sharp with experience. In his poems I recognised the older man in the chemist, the shed in the garden, the glory of being the new grandparent (even though I’m not there yet). Over thirty five people came to the Library for the first session of AT the Edge, Cavan. I was so happy!

It is great to recognise the world in a different way. Thank you, every one, for doing that for me this week.

Photos are of a few Cana House poets reading at the open mic, AT the Edge, Cavan. Also, Cana House Poets 11 have published a booklet of their poetry called YEAST. Poems by Pat Joe Kennedy, Ann O’Donoghue, Marion Lyon, Patricia Doole, Dermot Maguire, Ann Conway, Kate Ennals

Going Off ….

I have just had a wonderful week and I am excited about the month ahead. I am back in my bed after a week in Galway with my lovely friend who is now swanning about with other friends in Tipp. It is a Sunday morning of a bank holiday weekend and I feel the day stretches ahead in that luxurious, Judy Garland sort of way. Outside, I hear birdsong. I think the chirrup of the Robin is the lead, but the trills of the Finches and notes of the Blackbird are clear in the chorus. The sky is glowing pink in the East. I feel content and there is the crux of the matter. If I am happy, I tend to be ‘off doing’, not writing. A conundrum: I love to write and I love to be ‘off doing’ and the two do not entwine well.

Every morning last week, I would wake to the trills of friend, alongside the cries of the gulls, and immediately I would join in. There is nothing better first thing, after opening your eyes, than continuing the conversation of the night before, unless it is starting a new one. So, I might say, ‘Good morning, friend, what did you think of the President’s visit to England?’ And friend will regale me with views and opinions and soon we will be laughing our way into the day. It was absolute pleasure. But it meant I didn’t write. I talked and laughed instead. We also shopped, walked, ate cakes, and climbed Diamond Hill in Letterfrack on the most amazing morning, the sort of morning that only exists on Diamond Hill in Letterfrack, Connemara.

This coming week is very exciting too. There is the first night of my AT The Edge, Cavan (thanks to the wee bit of support from the Cavan Arts Office) which I am very excited and nervous about. I am doing a three day training course in facilitative leadership and I am going to a formal party where I have to dress up and look my best. This means I have to buy new sandals because Poppins, our new puppy, chewed up my pair from last year . This means a shopping expedition, where ‘I absolutely have to‘ buy shoes. I will feel I am a proper woman. And then, after that, I am going to Spain with friend: Malaga, Granada, Sierra Nevada, Alicante. There is no time to write. I am excited and this makes me very sad for, as every writer knows, the only true driving force for creative brilliance is misery, mayhem, and melancholia.

Ah well, I’ll try… but now I simply have to get up and go off and do…later, my friends, later.