Good morning. Happy St. Patrick’s Day! (I apologize for not publishing a post yesterday. Distractions abounded!) Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I am going to feature some poems by Irish writers. The Irish have a way with melancholic writing like no others . . . .
“The Last Rose of Summer”
’Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone; No flower of her kindred, No rosebud is nigh, To reflect back her blushes, To give sigh for sigh …
-Thomas Moore
“The Lost Land: Poems”
This is what language is: a habitual grief. A turn of speech for the everyday and ordinary abrasion of losses such as this: which hurts just enough to be a scar And heals just enough to be a nation.
-Eavan Boland
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”
I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
-W.B. Yeats
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
2552. What’s your favorite cereal? (Especially in honor of today, I am going to say, “Lucky Charms.”)
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! My husband and I had our DNA tested and I found out that at the very least, I have 12% Irish in me. That was news to me! I am happy and proud to have a little bit of the luck of the Irish swimming around in my blood. Here’s an Irish blessing that I am sending to all who read this today:
“May the most you wish for be the least you get.”
On a more somber note, yesterday, I ran into a very nice, respectful, smart young man who was friends and classmates with my middle son and played on the basketball team with my youngest son. I saw him at a local grocery/deli that I frequent. Unbeknownst to me, his family has owned that establishment (which makes the best subs that I have ever eaten) for over 20 years. As my sons’ friend waited on me, I caught up with him and he told me that he was working at his family’s store and going to a local college with hopes of continuing on to dentistry school. The young man’s mother came over to greet me, as well. I didn’t know her very well, but I always admired her from a distance, sitting in the basketball stands. She is a beautiful woman, with an amazing fashion sense and she always wears lovely accessories. One accessory she always wears is the khimar or hijab. Yesterday, the boy’s elegant mother wore a Burberry printed headscarf. She looked striking, as usual. She and I got to talking about the fact that we both have four children, both families having three sons and one daughter. We both gave each other sympathetic looks when we talked about how quickly our boys have grown up and moved on with their adult lives. At that moment, I started wondering if I should express my condolences to this Muslim family about the horrible tragedy in New Zealand. Should I say how sorry and sick I was for the violence those poor people suffered from the horrific shooting up of the two mosques? But then I checked myself. What if they expressed sympathy about the shootings of the Christian churches in Texas and Charleston to me? Wouldn’t that be like saying, so sorry that “your people” suffered violence? I am totally devastated whenever I hear of ANY senseless, murderous shooting, wherever it takes place, whether it be in a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a school, a train, a concert, in America, in Brazil, in any country! These horrible acts of hatred and violence are things that are a detriment to all of us in humanity. Most people who I know, and certainly all other mothers who I know, only want peace and love and tolerance and safety and opportunities for our children and for our families. We want the same for other people’s loved ones, as well. At that moment, had I known the boy’s mother better, perhaps the more correct response would have been to embrace her and to comfort her and to let her comfort me. At that moment, we would share an unsaid understanding together. That common understanding is that we are both loving, concerned mothers who pray in our own ways, for the very same thing – a safe, kind, harmonious, peaceful world for our precious children to thrive in.
