Tag Archives: donegal

Falcarragh Breakfast

open.substack.com/pub/lizdoyle/p/falcarragh-breakfast

Falcarragh Breakfast

~

Pine whorls, willow scrub

Midline spotted with sharp green grass

Oily puddles in pitted hollows

Of lumpy tarmac

~

Tentatively trotting down hill

Heart responding

Muckish stark against the violet sky

Errigal swathed in wisps

~

Overnight oats and warm green apples

From lichen coated branches

Beyond thick warm glass

Where the crumpled bracken turns

~

Snatched snippets of chat

‘Light’, ‘In the West’

‘Not to be perfect’, ‘Others’

‘Doing it’, ‘Now’

~

Four square cushions piled

On yellow planks. Tilt my hips

Pelvis spreading, reaching

For the granite crust

~

Hand knitted brown tweed

From Ardara

And a candle

For Creeslough

~~~

With loving thoughts for the community in #Creeslough where 10 precious lives were lost in an explosion last week

Flora

Foot bruised by an accident of enthusiasm

I can sit on the salvaged Parker Knoll recliner

pondering in splendid regality.

Spider Queen surveying her domain

of seven growing decades

Through wide opened double doors

On the hottest day of herstory

~

Up close (and so personal)

A bee fusses the scented pelargonium

on Dad’s old hand built coffee table

Marquetry stained by decades

of over enthusiastic watering

A fly dies in the cobwebbed corner

~

Foreground of swaying

frothy alchemilla mollis

Mum’s favourite coloniser of stone patios

and steps, perfect foil for sweet

Pastel pink blowsy Summer Wedding

rose blooms, stark against darker shadow

Memories of those North facing gardens

~

Backdrop of top heavy sycamore crowns

Rustling with seed jewels

Harbouring raucous caws of picus picus

Five for silver or six for gold

Most likely seven for those family secrets

Never been told

~

In the midfield young rowans

reach adolescent feathered arms

Up to the light. Early years stunted

by the North wind

Now finding strong footholds

Deep in the Donegal granite.

~~~

Heatwave

Heatwave

~

a Sunday in July, midday in a heatwave

‘caravan beach’ fills with campers and tents

~

sultry as summer in the south of France

Donegal unused to this weather

~

pull down black blinds to the South

open all windows North

~

dogs pant on the slate floor in the hall

fill water bowls almost hourly

~

solar panels reach maximum

fill a bath for watering later

~

so glad of the breeze from the sea

lifting the heavy geranium heads

~

swifts on the red endangered list

guillemots declining steeply

~

neighbour’s wayward cat has returned

the Times warns of two thousand extra deaths

~~~

An Island in the West

‘At the Peak’ a large painting of mine now in a private collection

Surrounded by the lull

Of the lapping amniotic salty sea

~

On a calm day blue green

Serene as a lullaby

~

In a storm she crashes

And collapses the beach defences

~

Triangle mountain transcends

The violent fickle pull of the tide

He manifests new pathways

~

Pierces the clouds of self abnegation

And affirms my right

To the light of creation

~

Home of the sun god Lugh

Sharp granite peak of enlightenment

Pointer to the stars

~~~

Weather

This is the Atlantic! Well just the small tidal strip between Cruit Island and Kincasslagh (County Donegal)
A very brief walk down by the shore with the dogs yesterday before getting caught in a horizontal hail storm
Unusually high tide up into the fenced field down by the shore (if you can’t get through it you have to go round it!) Always thankful for my waterproof boots (wellies), good coat, hat and gloves in Donegal !

Happy New Year 🕉

St Stephen’s Day

Watching the sky from our ‘sun room’ where we overwinter our geraniums. Nursing a sore back.

sudden gusts

of black dust

motes of

starlings

or small

songbirds

burst forth

from spidery

sycamore skeletons

waving bony

branch fingers

across the

gentle soft

grey sky

with luminous

liminal spaces

watched from

inside a

hazy cloud

of codeine

and caffeine

by bright globes

of whitest

geraniums

startling

against

these winter

hibernating

greens

Good to be back

It’s so good to see you all again ‼️

What with lockdown and everything I’ve been missing you

I was stuck over in Wales for nearly 3 months but I’m so glad to have been able to get back in my studio

Let me know in the comments what you’ve been up to for the last few months

And what are you looking forward to doing as lockdown gradually eases where you are?

Stay safe! 🍀 Looking forward to hearing your news!