Back Home! And a short poem, Pub Song

September 20,

From Limerick
     Nothing to do with limericks

To Shannon Rental Car
     Whereupon the inspector did not notice our run-in with the lorry and said the magic words: "good to go." And we did

To Shannon airport
     Enter through the famous duty-free

To Philadelphia
     No one notices Philadelphia

To Burlington
     Vermont at last

To Strafford
     Beautiful

To Home
     Also beautiful, two great and excited dogs, and safely in bed.

Congratulations to our driver
     who stayed focused on the left lane like a sheep dog working her sheep, even in the round-abouts, and who appreciated every sign calling for "traffic calming" and "no overtaking."

And now a poem of sorts:

Pub Song

It's not true that an Irish village
Is but a pub and a post
When often there are two pubs.

We saw two pubs side-by-side
On the water in Leenane,
One serving mainly Guiness,
The other serving mostly food.
None complaining.

The trad music in the pubs
In Galway, Clifden, Westport
Can transport you to a different place
and time and clear your thoughts.
Until they sing about Annie Moore.

Annie was an Irish girl of 15
who was the first ever to walk
through to America at Ellis Island,
and so she enters our fractured hearts.
"Isle of hope, isle of tears,
isle of freedom, isle of fears."

Annie reminds what's possible, what's lost.
Are we walking with her today?
Can we take her hand
and lift a light beside the Golden Door?

in Limerick

King John's fort

"may the sun shine warm upon your face"