TO THE BURREN

I’m off to the Burren in County Clare for a few days, my favourite part of the country apart from Shannonside of course ! This part of West Clare is a unique landscape twinned with the unusual geological formation of the limestone rocks and the wild furey of the Atlantic ocean. The whole place exudes wildness and calm in simultaneous irony, a special atmosphere where God’s majesty and power are awesomely paraded in the things that He has created. Seamus Heaney our Nobel poet is 70 on Monday and he too has been impressed with the Burren capturing his thoughts in this poem. ~GOSh.~
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POSTSCRIPT

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And some time make the time to drive out west

Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when the wind

And the light are working off each other

So that the ocean on one side is

With foam and glitter, and inland among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit

By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,

Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.

Useless to think you'll park or capture it

More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open

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Seamus Heaney