Alison Ni Dhorchaidhe

My grandad taught me about this wee ritual when I was small, and I still perform it every year.

Mistle Thrush, Fowlmere RSPB, 18th November 2008 © Garth Peacock

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate,
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to me
The Century’s corpse outleant,
Its crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind its death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervorless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead,
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited.
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
With blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,
And I was unaware.

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy’s (1840-1928) “The Darkling Thrush” was published in 1901, New Years Day. It refers to the beginning of a new year, a new century and the uncertainty of change. Quite an apt poem as we head into a new year and a new decade, and after the lunar eclipse certain change is predicted. Though I’m quite certain the thrush in Hardy’s poem is a Mistle Thrush (which is Amber Status), I thought I’d highlight that its cousin the Song Thrush is at the Red Status, and is so endangered. This snowy weather is not going to help their numbers, so I please urge you to help them by leaving them some food on a ground feeder of some sort (I made one myself out of cardboard and wrapped it in clingfilm to keep it from going soggy.) Thrushes and Blackbirds only eat off the ground, not on feeders like, say, the Blue Tits. Robins generally only feed on the ground too, but due to their size they can try out little trays of food on high feeders. They love fruit as well, so why not cut an apple in half and leave it out for them? :)

[Ealaíontóir/Artist: Geraldine O’Reilly, Peannaire/Calligrapher: Francis Breen]

Amhrán Mhis ag Grianstad an Gheimhridh

Oícheanta seaca
i mbile cille
mar éan i ngreim i nglae
lem chleití flichreocha
síos liom in aon bhrat oighir,
an dá chois crochta asam
mar phrátaí seaca
ag ceangal
de ghasa fada feoite,
chanainn
caintic na maidine,
imní ag giollaíocht
ar mo sheamsán dóchais
is reo na maidine ag athreo,
mo chuisle ceoil
ag cuisniú
is ag titim
ina gháire dóite.

Is bheinnse imithe ar eadarbhuas
ar bhaothréim siúil
ag lingeadh léimeanna
ó leamhan go hiubhar
mo chíoradh féin ar dheilgní an droighin
im ghealt
mar shíleadar,
murach
istigh im shlaod smeara
san idirfhásach
idir ghealtacht geilte
is gealtacht duine
cuimhne ag goradh
is ag spriúchadh teasa …

Le Biddy Jenkinson

Song of Mis at the Winter Solstice

Nights of hard frost
in the holy tree
trapped like a bird
with wet frozen feathers
I’d lay myself down in a sheet of ice
my feet sticking out,
frost potatoes
clinging
to long withered stalks,
and sing
morning’s canticle;
hagridden, trembling
on the drone of hope,
frost of morning hardening again,
my pulse of song
freezing
and falling
into bitter laughter.

I’d be away in a dizzy flight
in mad career
in springing leaps
from elm to yew
harrowing myself on spines of blackthorn,
half-crazy
the people thought,
only that
deep in my marrow,
deep between marrow and bone,
between the lunatic madness
and the madness of a sane woman
memory was nesting, brooding,
sputtering with damp heat …

Translated by Theo Dorgan

[from An Leabhar Mòr]

http://www.rte.ie/player/#l=7

selchieproductions:

• The days will start to grow longer
• it’s the last full moon of the decade
• It’s the first full moon eclipse in ages