Author: Tom Stock Page 17 of 30

BIRDS

In one of the glass cases at Dublin’s Natural History Museum, I saw a  bird with a red breast labeled “Robin.” It is half the size of our American Robin I saw this bird on a shrub in the ancient cemetery in Glendalough. The stuffed magpie and jackdaw were new to me. At Rock of Cashel ruins, we heard the calls of jackdaws who flew about and nested in small square openings in the rock wall. The jackdaw is in the crow family.

The first floor of the museum is a long 70 foot hall filled with taxidermy. Most animals had no connected habitat. A huge skeleton of a Right Whale hung from the ceiling. The stuffed rhino’s glass eyes stared like security camera. One tiny specimen, the least shrew, could fit into a teaspoon, “the smallest mammal” on the label. The wood floors creaked and on the walls, many antlers from the Giant Red Irish Deer. On both ends of the hall, iron grill work and mosaic tiles caught my eye. I made a rubbing and captured three different designs.

FULFILLED DREAMS

I imagined two things I wanted to do in Ireland…see flocks of sheep on broad, green pastures; and listen to Irish music in a pub. We did both.  Driving along the Irish Sea coast, a flock of huge black-headed sheep grazed along the roadside. Hedgerows prevent drivers from pulling over out of traffic. We found a pullout, and had a rare opportunity to linger and photograph. These sheep were the largest I’ve seen. Some looked the size of a pony. The sheep are raised for meat, not wool.  We had lamb stew in the restaurant in the Hunt Museum and loved it. We had great views of the Shannon River in this charming café during our first whole day in Ireland. The castles, the museums, and the cathedrals were astounding.

Our last night was spent in the Old Ground Hotel in Ennis near where we would depart next morning. I asked the clerk at the registration desk if there was pub that featured Irish music. “Cruise’s,” she said. We had dinner in a small room with a fire blazing. Its fuel was peat, which doesn’t crackle like wood. I wanted to visit a peat bog. This desire in and of itself will require another visit to Ireland. Nancy and I decided that Ennis was the town we’d stay in to tour the west coast on our next trip. Ennis is a portal for tourists that visit the scenic towns and cliffs. We walked the town and decided this was the next destination.

Three musicians set up in front of a fireplace, a bagpiper, banjo, and flute players. After sipping pints of tangy Irish brew, then began to play in 4/4 time, a foot-stomping pace that quickly penetrates everybody. Nancy started to dance a reel. The musicians blended with shrill pipe notes, the sharp plunks of the banjo, and whistle tones from the flute. The waitress said “Come in August for the festival. There are 400,000 people here!” Nancy and I chose January for our trip for the lower overnight rates and in between time as Nancy returns to her MFA writing program soon after we return.

Nancy has an Irish passport and is ¾ Irish. One of her goals was to return to her grandfather’s farm in Rosenallis which is in the midlands. The other goal was to reconnect with her second cousins, Betty and Polly in Dublin and Wicklow. She thinks she recognizes the place after several trips up and down narrow roads with hedgerows that block peripheral viewing. But a new stockade fence blocks the courtyard. Later we learn the old house has passed out of the family.

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Nancy and I enjoy visiting Babylon Overlook Beach for lunch in the car in the winter. If the wind and temperature aren’t too bad, we take large plastic bags and walk the beach looking for litter.

Today, the tide was dead low. We could see the flood tides’ aftermath with flotsam right up to the base of the dunes. We walk west and stoop and pick and stoop and pick until our bags are too heavy to continue. We are getting exercise, view great expansive scenery, and leave the beach cleaner. Every time we visit, there’s new litter attesting to the fact that our Atlantic Ocean is fouled continuously. We also do it because without fail, we find something interesting.

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Where do the pixels go

After you press delete?

Where do emotions go

Once emoted?

Where does the wind go

Once it blows itself out?

What about shadows

Once they are gone?

Is there a giant shadow box?

Everything goes some place

Where?

Is there a cloud old pixels?

I suppose emotions

Tuck themselves back

Where they came from.

Or end up in another being.

Wind, has to goes someplace.

Doesn’t it visit the wait in

The big waiting room for old weather?

Where does all our talking end up

Once it leaves the talker?

Is there a storage place

For used words?

And love?

That has to go to some special place

Is it the love garage, locker, shed?

And time? That’s the ultimate question

Are there second safe deposit boxes?

Freedom? Racism? Hatred?

Are all these places us?

Are we the grand savings banks

Of all the invisible stuff

That we can’t see?

Which brings up the theory of place

Place is where everything ends up

Like the thoughts behind this poem.

Tom Stock

(Who looses stuff)

Take the uptown A subway train from Penn Station to 190^th street. Step into Fort Tryon Park with grand views of the Hudson River, the Palisades, bedrock and the Cloisters, a 15 minute walk from the subway. Follow the walk to the entrance to begin a journey back into the 12^th century.

Medieval art, limestone corbels and capitals, wood carvings, copper, iron, glass, huge hanging tapestries. Many marble sculptures have eyes with black dots. These eye-dots look strange and out of place. A large stone baptismal font in Fuentiduena Chapel had a placard that told the story of Christine. She possessed by the devil, jumped into the sacred water and emerged healed. Her name was amended to “Christine the Astonishing”, as is the entire museum.

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We missed half of the Harbor Bells Concert in Sag Harbor. However, the second half was more than enough. The performance was held at St. Andrews Catholic Church. After listening to only one song, I fully entered the spirit of the holidays.

Ten bell ringers and the conductor performed Christmas carols that were specially arranged for a bell performance. The bells themselves don’t produce sharp dings. Rather, they are soft notes that don’t overpower. As I listened to the first piece, Stairway to Heaven, I felt my emotions rise to the point where I whimpered. This continued to happen for the remainder of the concert.

The bells range from small to large sounding the notes of an entire scale. The one lone man operated the smallest bells on one end while a woman on the opposite side handled two large bass note bells. They wore gloves. The sounds of each bell ringing at different points during the piece combine into a whole, delightful musical event. The conductor said that the ensemble practiced weekly for three months. They all had music and had to use teamwork to bring the piece together.

“Silent Night” overwhelmed me emotionally. We were invited to sing along. I could hardly find enough energy to sing the words. So strong were my emotions that I was barely audible, caught up at times without any words at all. One line stopped my cold. I call it a prompt line because I knew immediately after hearing the line, I’d contemplate its meaning. “Shepherds quake at the sight.” My imagination jumped; the manger, the holy family, the kings, the sheep, the shepherds. Although the line heightens the drama of this wonderful song,  I became the shepherd. Somehow I had learned that a baby was being born in a barn. I was in the vicinity and having spend much time alone with my sheep, decided to investigate. When I came upon the scene, I was shocked. I felt the sacred. I saw the sacred. Everything became sacred, the cows, the donkey, the goats, the people. Even the straw in the crib under the baby.

Bells get my attention. In Babylon, turning the compost pile, I hear church bells and stop. I find myself at attention. On the Hempstead Plains, the hourly bell from the Nassau Community College soundly gongs from a tower nearby. In Manhattan, in Greenwich Village, the stately ring from St. Anthony.s Church. It’s the bells that evoke spirit.