Over the Hills and Far Away (In Ireland)

One of the first things my history professor iterated in his class was that Ireland has been a land for poets since time immemorial, and that the Aes Dana, the learned class of druid-bards who kept the traditions and stories and brehon laws alive, were some of the most important people in Irish society. Poets are still highly valued today, as seen by the tremendous turnout at at Seamus Heaney reading I recently attended.

I've been writing like a fool since I've gotten here, poetry mostly, but I haven't for the most part been working on my fanfiction. Mostly because I have no time, partially because I have no space in which to write and be alone, and partially because I can't bring myself to devote time.

But something's been nagging me since I got into Galway and saw several times the great Anglo-Norman names of the founders of the city, merchants and such who must have come over with Strongbow and set up shop on the River Corrib because it's a fantastic place for boats. One prominent name is D'arcy, and the other is De Burgo, or De Bourgh.

Yes, there is a Pride and Prejudice fanfic lurking in this city, waiting to be written about the Darcy family's Irish cousins. But it fits! It does! It fits so well I'm surprised no one's thought of writing it yet. I can see it now -- Elizabeth and Darcy's quiet, genteel demense in London is tumbled head over heels when Irish relations of Darcy's come to stay for the season. Are they proud of these relations? Of course not, they're Irish, one can hear Lady de Bourgh saying distastefully. They run practically wild in that country, you know. And they were in trade.

Never mind that it was back in the 12th century, Lady de Bourgh. You're titled because you married well, you twit.

What would then be done with these cousins I have yet to determine. But it'll come to me.

A bit of Irish Poetry

As I posted on my Galway Rover blog today, the last few days have been about poetry a lot, and I've been thinking a lot about other people's poetry (WB Yeats and Seamus Heaney in particular) as well as writing my own.

I wrote a rhyming poem over breakfast my first day in Ireland called Recipe for a Perfect Irish Morning which you can read at the Galway Rover, I wrote a song this morning after visiting Thorr Ballylee (Yeats' house/16th century Norman tower), and I wrote another poem tonight after I peeled a pile of potatoes for dinner. It's a cheeky little thing I came up with musing on the relationship between pototoes, vegetable peelers, and life in general, and I think it sounds a bit like Seamus Heaney. I was thinking of Blackberry Picking while I was writing it.

Like an anxious lover

stripping off the clothes of his beloved

or rather like a teenage boy too overexcited for a taste of a girl's white thighs

so my potato peeler sloughs off the dirt-rich clothes of the potatoes,

revealingthe white flesh underneath,

so like a woman's, strong and firm and full of life,

brim-full with nourishment.

Leaves bits of skin behind, it does, the broken straps and bursted seams

of the hurried coupling. I'll clean those up later, l

eaving the flesh white mounds to sit on the counter

whilst the peeler goes on to make love to another potato,

strip off another set of clothes

and lay the same age-old waste.

We'll all go the same way some time,

flesh forgotten, set aside to boil into oblivion,

whiteness forgotten, the virgin days of youth spent,

finally eaten up by death and the Almighty

with a side of onions that were cut with grief-tears

and a pat of butter that could have once been the milk of kindness.

Nose to the Grindstone

Wrong grindstone for this blog, though. I haven't been writing as much as I'd like to be right now (although my latest Harry Potter fanfiction effort did inspire my freind DarkKnight to write a rather puzzled post on his "As Iron Sharpens Iron" blog, which is a strange kind of compliment, I think; you can read the blog post here)

Most of my time at present is consumed with preparations for my trip to Ireland and my little ten day excursion to London. I've been filled with budget concerns, travel time tables, and more emails from my trip director than I'd probably care to ever read, as most of them are giving me an ulcer about this trip.

Oh, and I turned twenty on Tuesday. So there was much cake being eaten. Good for my sweet tooth, bad for the developing ulcer.

So that's what's new. In leiu of a real post today, I'm going to post a poem that I think I have not shared with anyone. I found it on my computer the other day and decided it was good enough to share.

It's called "The Man I Killed."

The man I killed wore tattered blue --
he had a wife and children, too.
The uniform I wear is green --
and it is whole and somewhat clean.

The man I killed had hair of red--
he had a hearth, a home, a bed.
The hair upon my head is brown --
I have no family in my town.

The man I killed had farmer's hands,
streaked with the dirt from distant lands.
My hands are also streaked with toil
but not from dust, and not with soil.

The gun is resting in my hands, its barrel hot and black
His breath has left his body now, he is not coming back.

I don't know why I could not see --
The man I killed was just like me.