First Footing In Scotland, tradition has it that the first person to cross your threshold on Hogmanay (New Year’s Day) is a harbinger of good fortune for the rest to the year. He or she should be welcomed in, given a good nip of whiskey, some shortbread, and a lump of coal to represent a
After The Sleet Storm Ice sheathes the branches Of the hemlocks. My nostrils Have frozen tight shut.
To know how little You remember, move backward Until you forget.
The Journey Of The Magi A cold coming we had of it. Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp. The very dead of winter. And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we
Inexorably The cosmos moves toward death. Nothing will be left.
A FABLE Three old hens lived in the yard of a tender-hearted farmer named Nelly. The hens were at the end of their egg-laying days, but Nelly hated slaughtering her chickens even when they had outlived their usefulness, and the three hens had been with her for a long time. She’d grown rather fond of
Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses
Waiting For The Storm Old snow in the field Winter’s lull sharpens my ears Soon the sky will speak
Coaching Session A good many years ago I was a member of a television comedy troupe called The Henway Company (what’s a Henway? About four pounds. Cue rim shot, da dum bah!) It was the brain-child of a witty guy named Ray Edelstein, and it was openly based on the sketch comedy of NBC’s “Saturday
The Cruel Mother A minister’s daughter i’ the north, Hey, the rose and the linsey, O, Has fallen in love wi’ her feyther’s clerk, Doun by the greenwood sidey, O! He’s courted her for a year and a day, Hey, the rose and the linsey, O! At last she’s proved wi’ child by him. Doun