The Easter Rising - when poets led the way

The following is from the excellent Bear Creek Haiku blog (thanks to Ayaz Daryl Nielsen and friends):


Thursday, March 17, 2016

Ken McConnellogue, Patti Smith, poetry and Easter's martyrs. . . "It all leads to each other. We become ourselves."
 
A century ago, about 1,200 Irish women and men - poets and dreamers - initiated a poorly organized, short-lived rebellion against brutal British rule.  Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders, shortly before execution, wrote to his mother, "Our deeds of last week are the most splendid in Ireland's history.  People will say hard things about us now, but we shall be remembered by posterity and blessed by unborn generations."  Seemingly a dismal failure, yet, stirred by the brutality of the executions, Ireland's "slumbering nationalist movement awakened" - in 1949, Ireland achieved full nationhood.
 
Ken McConnellogue, poet and journalist, amidst his Denver Post article: "the doomed, foolhardy, splendid effort galvanized the Irish then and continues to this day.  It was not a bad week's work for poets and dreamers who became martyrs to their nation's cause, remembered by posterity and blessed by unborn generations."

Ken McConnellogue (kieranmc13@gmail.com)



Patti Smith, in her latest,
    'M Train' (winner of the National Book Award),
states
"Where does it all lead? 
What will become of us?. . .
                                   It all leads to each other.
                                   We become ourselves."    


Easter's magnificent martyrs, leading us back to each other.

Beloved wife Judith, with ancestors from County Derry, directed me to Ken's article, even as 
ass't. ed.'s Frosty and Tama

insisted we create this post -
"we have feline ancestors
in County Derry, too!"



(from 'A New Zealand Prayer Book')

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven:
   The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
   The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
   Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
   Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
   sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and for ever.  Amen.


Ok, Tama, Frosty, it's time for treats!



see you in a moment

ayaz daryl nielsen
                                            darylayaz@me.com
                                            (and/or)
                                            darylayz@gmail.com 
Posted by ayaz daryl nielsen at 9:45 PM
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To Open the Sky: Katherine L. Gordon

Three birds breached
that barrier between the seasons......
tore through the grey fabric
of a fitful March sky,
made swift passage to still familiar trees
and home again at last to me.
Fickle travelers I grieved for,
their music so missed in silent winter,
flip of saucy feathers in barely budding bush.
And on this day they bring me spring,
far too early, though I trust
that unlike me they understand the light.

 
Katherine L. Gordon
March 9th, 2016.


                                                  
                                                                 ~   ~   ~   ~

Hi Katherine,
Thanks for the poem - it's the first posting I've done in about 3 weeks, as I've been in deeper mourning over the passing of Chase 5 weeks ago than anticipated.

As usual, your poem really resonated with me. This premature spring thaw drew me to my back window, even before I started morning coffee preparations. Two crows were perching in the branches of my neighbour's tree which looms into my yard. A third crow flipped in to join them, and as always I thought of Milton Acorn and his love of crows and their shamanistic behaviour. While I stood watching and waiting for some sign from the animated backyard visitors, one crow dropped a watery poop from his perch, & thus endeth my visitation  ;  )

peace & poetry power!
Chris