This piece evokes many days over the years in the kitchen and on the mountain at Glanquin farm in the heart of the Burren, in County Clare. A love poem to the place and to all who reside there.
GLANQUIN
The best days at Glanquin might be the ones
where nothing really happens untoward,
then swiftly does, a day when the rain beats
just a little against the window, then suddenly
clears in sunlight, the double rainbow
over Mullach Mór unseen outside while the tea
is handed, the bright rays only flooding the table
for a moment, then swept away with breakfast.
The best days always have a sense of settling in,
while alert to an imminent call, to putting down
the mug and setting out. A phone rings; and
a horse to be seen by the vet 'but later
in the week' says a shouted conversation
at cross-purposes with the affectionate
and puzzled mumble of someone
reading Heaney from a corner chair.
But no need to move yet, the pleasant fire
and the fug of the kitchen has us
for another hour, a child walks in,
her face shining with returned rain,
and ’tis lashing’ says some unrecognized
voice from the hallway, while someone
in the kitchen says provocatively,
to move our blather deeper,
'I never did like Heaney.'
Before Heaney can be saved, thank God
the dog steals a scone from the table
and is let out the door, tail dragging
guiltily through the wet grass, where
the sky has cleared once more and
the day has mended but where
it is also clear, the sheep have tumbled
down a limestone wall and come straight
back down the mountain,
flooding the field with their complacent,
white, arriving backs. But there’s
no trouble, just the need to walk them
back up the mountain, back up
to that waiting horizon that has been
calling quietly all along, the dog’s
forgetful tail lifted again
and the tongue lolling in anticipation.
We walk out the door in boots and jackets,
faces lifted to catch the light, and hear
the faint voice of a woman behind us,
‘May God be good to us again
with a day like this, and all of us safe.’
An old blessing for our skeptical days,
but in it, the bracing sense
of a proper cure: of hearing
just at the moment of setting off,
the right word at the right time,
after a long hard winter, even if
only half-heard and even if it was
said and meant for someone else,
and then, in the bracing air
our mutual acknowledgment and wry
smiles outside the door, the two of us
having heard it together, while haloed
above us the gift of the mountain
captivating and beckoning, at one
and the same time, framing the miracle
everyday sight of a dog standing,
outlined by spring light, leaning intently
beneath the hills, eyes a-set,
all a-glimmer for the flock.
from Still Possible
What is amazing about Glanquin is the masterful threading of so many strands of the story in and out of the stanzas. The external world, the home interior, the animals, humans, Heaney, voices and a sense of community all squeezed into this poem of love. It is admirable and atmospheric and I wish I had written it! The depiction of the dog is so real........ I love them too!
Feeling at home there in the kitchen, and then the walk outside. Felt my own chin raise to the sunshine! Thank you for sharing this ordinary beauty in such a way it is new as it always should be!