Poem for Tuesday and Giant's Ring

The Giant's Ring 

By Robinson Jeffers 

Ballylesson, Near Belfast 

Whoever is able will pursue the plainly

False immortality of not having lived in vain but leaving some

mark in the world.

Secretly mocking at his own insanity

He labors the same, he knows that no dead man's lip was ever

curled in self-scorn,

And immortality is for the dead.

Jesus and Caesar out of the bricks of man's weakness, Washington

out of the brittle

Bones of man's strength built their memorials,

This nameless chief of a knot of forgotten tribes in the Irish darkness

used faithfuller

Simpler materials: to diadem a hilltop

That sees the long loughs and the Mourne Mountains, with a ring

of enormous embankment, and to build

In the center that great toad of a dolmen

Piled up of ponderous basalt that sheds the centuries like raindrops.

He drove the labor,

And has earmarked already some four millenniums.

His very presence is here, thick-bodied and brutish, a brutal and

senseless will-power.

Immortality? While Homer and Shakespeare are names,

Not of men but verses, and the elder has not lived nor the

younger will not, such treadings of time.

Conclude that secular like Christian immortality's

Too cheap a bargain: the name, the work or the soul: glass beads

are the trade for savages.

-------- 

To follow up the ophthalmologist on Monday, I had my semiannual dentist appointment on Tuesday. It was fairly uneventful other than he thinks I should think about using a bite guard so I don't end up needing crowns on my back teeth; I had one years ago and it kept me awake at night, so I stopped using it, and now I have to see if my insurance will pay for one of the newer thinner ones. I also worked on my Ireland photo book and started catching Pokemon for the Halloween event. 

My Voyager group watched "Repentance" which is quite didactic and doesn't care much about keeping the characters in character, but those are frequent sins of the franchise overall, so I probably shouldn't complain. I also watched a couple of Derry Girls episodes with Cheryl, this week's Arrested Development-tinged Only Murders in the Building, and the hilarious Lego Marvel Avengers: Mission Demolition. The nearly 5000-year-old Giant's Ring in Northern Ireland:

Poem for Tuesday and Knowth Passage Tomb

Knowth 

By James Caruth 

Five thousand years ago

they raised this mound

to house their dead,

dug two ditches around its edge,

etched on kerbstones, visible 

and invisible cycles of the moon.

Darkness weighs like a stone.

Somewhere a rat is scratching,

the sour air trembles at the throb

of a tiny heart, the quick insistence 

of claws seeking carrion, whetting teeth 

on bare bone. Night settles. 

The walls are closing in.

-------- 

Our dryer's broken temperature control has finally been fixed, so our trip laundries are finally finished! That was the big event here on Tuesday, apart from a trip to the dentist so Paul could get a crown glued back on that fell off in Ireland and I could do some shopping while he was in the chair. There were eagles flying over the Safeway, so I'm guessing there are salmon in the stream that runs behind it. 

My Voyager group watched "Shattered" which was as delightful as we had remembered it being; I'm going to pretend that was the series finale and the rest is bad fanfic. Afterward we saw the end of the Dodgers game over dinner, then this week's Only Murders in the Building (Melissa and Meryl!). Some pics from Knowth at Brú na Bóinne, which has at least 18 tombs and a vast amount of megalithic art: 

Poem for Sunday and Grange Stone Circle

Paper Stone Circle 

By Paul Casey 

stone turns to paper in her eye

as she filters cycles of light

into circles of paper stones

her eye is a stone circle

a near-infinity of light

that sees the circle as finite

the near-permanence of stone

the almost endless circle

is light, impermanent as paper

stone and white butterflies

circle and circle her

she questions their sentience

stone ancestors

paper-light circles

she sees them say

she hears their paper voices

say, know your own time

be light, circle, stone

-------- 

We had gorgeous weather on Sunday, sunny and nearly 70 degrees. I spent the morning doing post-travel chores -- all the laundries are folded just in time for the usual Monday one, and the dryer still has a broken temperature control wheel -- then we had lunch and went to Snohomish because Chris had invited us to pick pears in her sister's orchard. Her sister, who's an artist, also has a pottery studio, so we got to eat pears, see gorgeous decorative pieces, and meet Chris's nephew, so that was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. 

We saw a bit of the Jets-Vikings game from London in the morning and the start of the Commanders win over the Browns, but the Ravens' overtime win wasn't televised here. We just watched the Padres beat the Dodgers by a worse score than the Guardians beat the Tigers yesterday, and now Paul has on the Cowboys-Steelers game, but I'd rather they both lose. This is Grange Stone Circle in County Limerick, over 4000 year old, built aligned to the rising Samhain sun, which had women performing a ritual when we were there:

Greetings from Brú na Bóinne

We had absolutely perfect, partly cloudy, nearly 60-degree weather all day on Tuesday as we crossed both Irelands. After breakfast at the Beechlawn Hotel, we drove to the Giant's Ring in Ballynahatty, an enormous circular enclosure with a dolmen at the center. Then we went to two Brigid sites: St. Brigid's Shrine in Faughart, one of the places rumored to be her birthplace, which has the Stations of the Cross along a stream, and St. Brigid's Well at the Hill of Faughart, where Edward Bruce, High King of Ireland until 1318, was killed and buried in the cemetery nearby. We also visited Monasterboice, an ancient Christian church and graveyard, with a huge 10th century round tower and beautifully decorated high crosses. 

Then we went to a place long on my bucket list: Brú na Bóinne, the landscape containing passage tombs older than Stonehenge. We went first to the visitor center, where we ate lunch in the cafe there and saw exhibits on the building and, millennia later, excavation of the tombs, which are accessed via bus after crossing the Boyne. People aren't allowed to enter Knowth, dating at least 3000 BC, which has many decorated stones encircling it, but tour groups can walk on top of the mound, while Newgrange recreates the experience of the winter solstice sun inside the tomb, reaching the famous interior spiral. Our last stop was the Hill of Tara, inauguration site of Ireland's High Kings and another ancient burial mound. 

Greetings from Northern Ireland

Sunday was overcast most of the day, with dramatic clouds over the hills, but again it only rained when we were in the car. We ate breakfast at the Sligo Park Hotel's buffet, then drove to nearby Drumcliffe Church to see W.B. Yeats's grave and the beautiful chapel. Then we went to another tomb, Creevykeel Court cairn, which is at least 3000 years old. Our next stop was Tullan Strand, a beautiful beach beneath ancient sea stacks whose wide gaps are called the Fairy Bridges and a Wishing Chair formation said to be magical. 

Continuing our tour of regional megaliths, we went to Beltany Stone Circle, a large Stone Age site marking the seasons...surrounded by sheep and cows, and also quite generously dotted with cow manure so walking in it was exciting but treacherous! And we went up into the winds to see Grianán of Aileach, a royal hill fort built before the 6th century high above sea level, with fantastic views of the surrounding countryside, Inch Island, and the lochs leading to the sea...huge, spectacular, and giving the impression one would be blown right off! 

Then we drove to Derry, though we were surprised that there was no sign or indication when we crossed the border from Ireland into the U.K. We went to lunch at the Scullery for sandwiches, salads, and pasta bowls (one of few places open on a Sunday) before visiting the Visitor Information Centre, which in addition to having information on local attractions and upcoming Halloween events has a short film about Amelia Earhart, who landed in the area at the end of her first solo flight across the Atlantic. 

From there we went to the Tower Museum, which in addition to Earhart artifacts has a permanent installation on the history of Derry from prehistoric time through the Troubles -- somewhat different perspectives on the English than at the Limerick museums -- plus an exhibit on the Spanish Armada including pieces from a shipwreck recently discovered in the water nearby, and the Derry Girls Experience with props and costumes from the show. After walking on the Derry city walls, we visited several Amelia Earhart murals and plaques, ending at the sixth hole at the Foyle Golf Club, which is what's now where she landed.

Greetings from the West Coast of Clare

We had sunshine for most of Friday, and it was fine when we didn't because we saw two rainbows after brief showers. We started our day with eggs, toast, and various other items for breakfast at the Muskerry Arms, then we drove the five minutes to Blarney Castle, whose uppermost reaches require climbing precarious spiral staircases. I chickened out on kissing the Blarney Stone (I don't see how anyone under 5' tall can reach it without being put on a rope), but the castle ruins themselves, garderobes and all, plus the extensive gardens are spectacular...including megaliths, ancient trees, waterfalls, poison plants, and color-changing ivy on the curtain walls. We grabbed a picnic lunch in town and ate it on the way to Grange Stone Circle, with the biggest diameter of any circle in Ireland. Some stones have trees with roots growing around them and there were a couple of pagans performing a ritual in the center. 

From there we drove to King John's Castle in Limerick, which has extensive history exhibits on the ground floor, a courtyard with historical games from horseshoes to seesaws and displays of smithcraft, masonry, and musical instruments, and the remains of the castle (destroyed after extensive siege warfare from the archeological excavations underground to the towers with beautiful views of the River Shannon. After much climbing medieval staircases to see what's left of the rooms there, we headed to Lahinch, where we dropped off our things at the hotel and walked to the beach just in time for sunset. The tide was out, so we also got to see mussels, clams, and limpets, plus seagulls looking for them and several people walking friendly dogs. We picked up fish and chips for those who eat fish and a veggie burger for me at a local place and watched a special about the late great Maggie Smith we found on TV. 

Greetings from Cox Farms

Sunday was another gorgeous day, and since the Renfaire was already sold out by the time we settled on a weekend to go with Cheryl, we decided to meet up in Virginia instead. We had lunch at the Fair Lakes Burger King, then we went to Cox Farms for their Fall Festival, which involves many of my favorite things, including farm animals, cider, giant slides, a magical walk in the woods, petting goats, thousands of pumpkins including some to take home, Foamhenge, and many photo ops! 

Paul made Avgolemono for dinner which is perfect in cooling weather, plus we had Trader Joe's 5 Cheese Greek Spiral. We missed most of the Ravens losing to the Giants and switched back and forth between the Eagles beating Dallas (yay) and the Yankees beating Cleveland (boo), then we watched Interview with the Vampire, in which Lestat is more the jerk he was in that first book and the interviewer calls Louis on the inconsistencies in his story, though I miss the seductive swoon of the first episode.