The New Year simply hasn’t begun for me and lots of that is due to the fact that I’ve been waiting to take an acceptable photograph of birds to accompany the one poem that always gets a year going in my crazy mind.
I’ve gone out day after day and the birds are singing melodiously or soaring beautifully but it’s like they are playing hide and seek with me.
So here’s the poem and maybe someone would send me a 2015 photo of ‘summoning birds’ that I can add in to the post.
Begin
Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight at the light at the window,
begin to the roar of morning traffic
all along Pembroke Road.
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in dark
determination and exhaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and future
old friends passing through with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces
at crying birds in the sudden rain
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and future
old friends passing through with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.
From: The Essential Brendan Kennelly: Selected Poems (2011) edited by Terence Brown and Michael Longley ( Bloodaxe Books)
P.S. The photograph that I like best from my numerous expeditions in search of ‘summoning birds’ since January 1st is this one.
SOCIAL BRIDGE ~ Jean Tubridy connecting with you from Ireland 