In the Dark

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up –
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.

by Ted Hughes (1930-98)

I’ve always been fascinated by Nursery Rhymes. Some people think these are little more than nonsense but in fact they are full of interesting historical insights and offer important advice for the time in which they were written. One such poem, for example, delivers a stern warning against the consequences of placing sleeping babies in the upper branches of trees during windy weather.

In the light of recent events I thought I would continue this old tradition by posting a nursery rhyme of topical relevance. Here it is:

Verse:

The Grand Old Duke of York
He gave twelve million quid
To a girl he never met
For a thing he never did.

Chorus:

And when he was up he **censored**

The renowned Irish Poet Thomas Kinsella has passed away at the age of 93. By way of a small tribute I thought I would post again a poem by him that I first posted about 7 years ago when I had no inkling that I would move to Ireland. Probably his most famous and definitely his most anthologised work Mirror in February gives us a reflection (in more ways than one) on the inexorable and irreversible process of ageing. Kinsella actually wrote this in May 1962 when he would have been just 34 years old and probably had no idea he would live almost another sixty years. Apart from everything else this poem confirms my opinion that shaving is to be avoided…

The day dawns with scent of must and rain,
Of opened soil, dark trees, dry bedroom air.
Under the fading lamp, half dressed – my brain
Idling on some compulsive fantasy-
I towel my shaven jaw and stop, and stare,
Riveted by a dark exhausted eye,
A dry downturning mouth.

It seems again that it is time to learn,
In this untiring, crumbling place of growth
To which, for the time being, I return.
Now plainly in the mirror of my soul
I read that I have looked my last on youth
And little more; for they are not made whole
That reach the age of Christ.

Below my window the awakening trees,
Hacked clean for better bearing, stand defaced
Suffering their brute necessities,
And how should the flesh not quail that span for span
Is mutilated more? In slow distaste
I fold my towel with what grace I can,
Not young and not renewable, but man.

by Thomas Kinsella (1928-2021)