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Poetry spot - do you have the next poem for here? email it to Nick!
Poem for November: The Harvest Bow by Seamus Heaney
As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.
Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks
Harked to their gift and worked will fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,
And if i spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall--
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,
Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.
The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That i have pinned up on our deal dresser--
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.
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Hi everyone
We have received a number of enquiries about the weather and asking if the Convention will be affected - all is well and the Convention will go ahead as planned.
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Hi Gillies
Many thanks for your blog in response to monbiot's article I posted earlier this week - lots to chew over and reflect on there. Just to let you know, the original post is from me and the link is here in case you wanted to also post you...
Hi - is it possible someone can post Clifford Guests lecture notes from Thurles? It might help this debate. He has a comprehensive analysis of industry and academic peak oil research which gives the 'moment' of peak oil as a specific date (last ye...