Redemption comes at such a cost
Freezing winds off the Irish sea
Blow me away from hearth and home
At such a cost - loss pressing on loss -
...
Light waves to Schrödinger's cat,
it does not matter
if a particular particle's partiality
parts from the classical concept
...
Notre Dame's Gothic aspiration
Became a symbol of the French nation.
...
I remember fallingas a child
And being lifted by a fairy-wild
...
O! daughter dear, on this mid-western afternoon,
When I can see all the way to Sacramento, I cry
...
Suttee, Sanskrit sati ("good woman" or "chaste wife") , a Hindu custom of a wife immolating herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband.
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I am the father of 5 children, the grandfather of 3 children and friend to Charlie an 11 year old black labrador. My wife is Irish and I am English though my father was an orphan, so who knows. I worked for the Open University for 30 years teaching history, linguistics and literature. I enjoy reading poetry and novels, history and philosophy. I also like walking, swimming, travelling and watching cricket.)
Song For The Old Year
Redemption comes at such a cost
Freezing winds off the Irish sea
Blow me away from hearth and home
At such a cost - loss pressing on loss -
Yet still the winter-birds sing,
Seemingly so carelessly,
And we know it costs them their whole life
To fly this way and sing and eat and build and build
Yet still this merely human, framed of earth,
Cannot scrape away the curse of discontent:
Sitting solid as a rock, squatting squarely
On the chest where a bird would build a nest
Then fly high high into the blue skies of summer
So far, far away from this deep and dark complacency.