Thursday, April 9, 2015

Where they lived


 
 
 

 
I’m always tempted to stop at derelict houses, old ruins, etc., sites where past generations have left their mark. There’s a particular atmosphere, a poignancy. In their state of aging or decay, they suggest sadness’s, hardships.  The tiny rooms, the (often) miserably poor land, potato ridges still outlined in a nearby field, a fuchsia in full bloom.
I hope to find something more than just the gable or bare walls, something that will transmit a stronger sense of the people that lived there. A surviving hearth, the lintel over the window, over the door, the details that bring some personality to the remains.
The other day I came upon the ruins of an old cottage at the top of a valley in the Bluestacks in Donegal. What a hard place it must have been in deep Winter; now its walls half gone, but its extent and layout still very clear. In a recess in the gable, there was a stone clearly shaped for some function; was it a pestle, or a weight?
It is so rare to find anything but bare walls scoured by the weather. I thought of holding onto it, but, much more than any museum exhibit, it was where it belonged; I left it. 
 
No People
The hunch-doubled thorns,
ingrown pantries
dung-puddled;
the moss-stone walls
tumble-gapped.
 
The nettle-cracked doorway,
lintel-fallen
byre-footed;
the cloud curtained windows
elder-berried. 

 
The stone-sheltered air
bumbled still,
ruin-reverent;
the submerged garden ridges
dumb-founded.
 
 

 

 
 

 
 

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