When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Hey all! Happy St. Patrick's Day. It's a cold, sludgey, blustery day. I feel a bit sorry for the marchers on parade. In high school I was a baton twirler and you can imagine the chill that marching through streets for St. Patrick's Day brings. Especially in our skirts and sweatshirts. It wasn't constant marching either, we had to stop and keep formation several times. But all I can do is imagine because all I can remember are good times, and the nice looking Stepinac Marching Band in front of us. Haha. I also remember a skirted (kilted) man flirting with us, and when asked if he were cold in that lovely garb he exclaimed that he liked a "breeze in the nethers". Imagine that in an Irish brogue.

Here is a poem by famed poet, Seamus Heaney (winner of the Noble Prize 1995 in Literature) in honor of St. Paddy's.

It's great because it fits in a lot of ways to stuff that's going on in my life.


The Haw Lantern

The wintry haw is burning out of season,
crab of the thorn, a small light for small people,
wanting no more from them but that they keep
the wick of self-respect from dying out,
not having to blind them with illumination.

But sometimes when your breath plumes in the frost
it takes the roaming shape of Diogenes*
with his lantern, seeking one just man;
so you end up scrutinized from behind the haw
he holds up at eye-level on its twig,
and you flinch before its bonded pith and stone,
its blood-prick that you wish would test and clear you,
its pecked-at ripeness that scans you, then moves on.



By Seamus Heaney
From "The Haw Lantern", 1987

*Diogenes d circa 320 B.C. Greek Cynic philosopher; advocated asceticism, self-sufficiency, freedom from convention, moral zeal.

You all should see the many definitions of "haw", but in this respect it may mean "hawthorn bush" or "hedge".

I must sit and analyze it but it's first impressions make me nod. Yes.
Good Day.

Me