Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! I’m off to start my celebrations with a luncheon today. How about you? Celebrating?
Today I share with you a stanza from a poem by Irish poet Marie Cadden. On my last trip to Ireland I bought a book of poetry titled Gynaecologist in the Jacuzzi (Salmon Press) from Charlie Byrne’s Book Shop in Galway.
The title intrigued me, but when I got back home and read the book, the poems intrigued me too. Marie Cadden’s use of language, her wit, and the subject matters she chose—all charmed me.
I was sad to learn that Marie Cadden passed away in December. Since her work is not in the public domain I don’t have permission to print an entire poem here. (You can read samples from this book on the Salmon site).
But I plucked this stanza from “In Praise of Denial” because it can almost be a kind of mantra.
It certainly is an antidote to the frenetic revelry and drinking that is associated with Saint Patrick’s Day.
Peace, love, and solace
From “In Praise of Denial”
“Just to be,
letting go
into the warm squashy breast
of the continuously present continuous,
breathing into the moment,
floating nowhere else but here and on and on
where everything matters and nothing matters.”
© Marie Cadden, 2016
From Gynaecologist in the Jacuzzi by Marie Cadden
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