"The Birthright"

We were born

In country places,

Far from cities

And shifting faces.

We have a Birthright

No man can sell,

And a secret Joy

No man can tell.

For We are Kindred

To Lordly things,
The wild duck's flight
And the white owl wings.
To pike and salmon,
To bull and horse,
The curlew's cry
And the smell of gorse.

Pride of trees
Swiftness of streams,
Magic of frost
Have shaped our Dreams:
No baser Vision
Their Spirit fills,
Who Walk by Right
On the naked Hills.

~Eiluned Lewis

(1900-1979) 
Wales

~Beanniachte'
 19 July, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com 

"Time Out"

In the name God, stop a moment,

cease your work,

look around you...

~Leo Tolstoy

     I live high in the hills and my body is getting olde. One day I was out in my garden fussing with weeds and grew tired. I decided to lie back on the grass and rest like I did when I was a small boy.

     I woke up several minutes later, with a neighbour I had never met leaning over me, asking if I was okay. He had looked out his window, two blocks up the hill, and saw me lying on my back on the grass.  I am sure I looked like the victim of a stroke or heart attack. He ran all the way down the hill to check on me.

     It was embarrassing, but it was also so wonderfully touching. After we had sorted it all out, he let out a deep breath and lay down on the grass beside me. We both stayed there very quietly for a while and then he said,"Thank you, for deciding to take your nap out on the lawn where I could see you. The sky is such a beautiful thing, and I cannot remember the last time I really looked at it.

~Unknown

Beannaichte'

 15 July, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com 

"Life Lines"

What the heart gives away is not lost.

It is kept in the hearts of others.

~ Robin St. John

How can I smile so soon after,

 you ask?

What reason have I to cry?

He filled my days with laughter.

Would a saddened face and swollen eyes,

be proper tribute to such a man?

His reply to death was living.

I won't put him to shame by giving up on life.

To withdraw into a world of grief,

what kind of wife would I be?

Like a man about to be born, he died,

with a sigh of relief on his last breath.

He has gone on to a better life,

how do I mourn his death?

Having known such a man,

I should weep?

~ Randy Jaroch

U.S.A.

~ Beannaichte'

 8 July, 2016

@beannaichte.twitter.com

         

"Gettysburg Address"

      
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated , can long endure.  We are met on a great battle-field of that war.  We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who gave their lives that this nation might live.  It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate- we can not consecrate- we can not hallow- this ground.  The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.  The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.  It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

~Abraham Lincoln

U.S.A.

19 November, 1863 

~Beannaichte'

1 July, 2016

~Happy Independence Day!

Semper  Fidelis

~55,000 of our Women Veterans
remain homeless.
PLEASE visit www.finalsalute.org
for additional information.
~Thank You!

@beannaichte.twitter.com                                                                                     

"Eyes of a Painter"

Gray-haired and flint-eyed

His sunburned Face lined 

Grandpa was a man of few words

He had a way of not wanting to say

Any more than he thought could be heard.

The long Years of Living 

And day-to-day Giving

Had carved a Map on his Face

With Little to Lose, he'd learned how to Choose

And his Choices were easy to Trace.

He had the Eyes of a Painter

The Heart of a Maker of Songs

And his Words fell Like Rain

On the Dry desert Plain

Precious and so Quickly Gone.

From a long line of Teachers

And white Baptist Preachers

He was Born with an Indian Will

His Quiet dark Eyes, Reading the Light 

As he rode in the low Osage Hills.

His School was the Prairie, the Sage, the Wild Berry

The Quail, the wide Open Sky

The Cottonwood thicket, by the Slow Rolling River

The Redbud and the hot Cattle Drive.

There were Days filled with Thinking

Nights with the drinking
For a Lost Love that Raged like a Storm

But how his Eyes Smiled, when he'd talk to a Child

His rough Hands so Gentle and Warm.

His strong Arms were brown 

Where the long sleeves rolled down

On his Faded blue cotton Shirt

When Times got hard, he went out in the yard

And cuss away some of the Hurt.

Now the Garden's grown dusty

The hand Axe lies Rusty

The door's banging hard in the Wind

Grandpa's Store is Closed down

Like most of the Town

And  it Won't be Open again.

His big white car sits out in the Yard

Of  the House he Built Solid  and True

But I see his Eyes, Burning tonight

Like the Stars in the Sky he once Knew.

He had the Eyes of a Painter...
And the Heart of a Maker of Songs
~And his Words  Fell like Rain...
On the Dry desert Plain
Precious and so  Quickly Gone.
 
 

~Kate Wolf

  U.S.A.

~Beannaichte'

 22 June, 2016

beannaichte@twitter.com 

"Restless Farewell"

Oh, all the money in my whole life I did spend

Be it mine right or wrongfully

I let it slip gladly past the hands of my friends

To tie up the time most forcefully

But the bottles are done 

We've killed each one

And the table is full and overflowed

And the corner sign

Says it's closing time

So I'll bid farewell and be down the road.

Oh, every man that ever I've touched

I did not do it harmfully

And every man that ever I've hurt

I did not do it knowingly

But to remain as friends

You need the time
To make amends and stay behind

And since my feet are now fast

And point away from the past

I'll bid farewell and be down the line.

Oh, every foe that ever I faced

The cause was there before we came

And every cause that ever I fought

I fought it full without regret or shame

But the dark does die
As the shade is drawn and somebody's eyes
Must meet the dawn

And  if  I see the day

I'd only have to stay

So I'd bid farewell in the night and be gone.

Oh, every thought that has strung a knot in my mind

I might go insane if it couldn't be sprung

But it's not to stand naked under unknowing eyes

It's for myself and my friends; my stories are sung

But time ain't tall, yet on time you depend

And no word is possessed by no special friend

And though the line is cut

It ain't quite the end

I'll just bid farewell till we meet again.

Oh, a false clock tries to tick out my time

To disgrace, distract, and bother me

And the dirt of gossip blows into my face

And the dust of rumors covers me

But if the arrow is straight

And the point is slick

It can pierce through the dust, no matter how thick

So I'll make my stand

And remain as I am

And bid farewell and not give a damn.

~ Bob Dylan

U.S.A.

~ Beannaichte'

 8 June, 2016

@beannaichte,twitter.com

"The Fisherman"

Although

 I can see him still

The freckled man who goes

To a grey place on a hill

In grey Connemara clothes

At dawn to cast his flies,

It's long since I began

To call up to the eyes

This Wise and Simple man.

All day I'd look in the face

What I'd hope 'twould be

To write for my Own Race

And the Reality;

The living men that I hate

The dead man that I Loved,

The craven man in his seat,

The insolent unreproved.

And no knave brought to book

Who has won a drunken cheer,

The witty man and his joke

Aimed at the commonest ear,

The clever man who cries

The catch-cries of the clown, 

The beating down of the Wise

And great Art beaten down. 

Maybe a twelvemonth since

Suddenly I began.

In scorn of this audience,

Imagining a man.

And his sun-freckled face,

And grey Connemara cloth,

Climbing up to place

Where stone is dark under froth.

And the down turn of his wrist

When the flies drop in the Stream:

A man who does not exist,

A man who is but a Dream;

And cried, "Before I am olde

I shall have written him one

Poem maybe as cold

And Passionate as the Dawn.

W. B. Yeats

(1865-1939)

Dublin, Ireland 

~Beannaichte'
31 May, 2016

~ Our Thoughts and Prayers are with those who have been affected, by the tornadoes and storms,

in Oklahoma, Texas, and other areas, of the country. ~ Our losses are great, yet our Resilience is Greater!

~ A"Special Thanks" to the First Responders, and the Volunteers, who have rallied together, at this time of Need. ~You are without Equal!

~ God Bless the U.S.A.!

~Beannaichte'!

@beannaichte.twitter.com