Areopagus Volume XL

Seven short lessons every someday.

Welcome one and all to the fortieth volume of the Areopagus. Or perhaps I should say Céad Míle Fáilte! Today is St. Patrick's Day, and so it only seems right that this week's volume be themed around Ireland, that green jewel on the very edge of Europe, halfway between continent and ocean.

Green, blue, yellow, and red –
God is down in the swamps and marshes
Sensational as April and almost incredible
the flowering of our catharsis.
A humble scene in a backward place
Where no one important ever looked
The raving flowers looked up in the face
Of the One and the Endless, the Mind that has baulked
The profoundest of mortals. A primrose, a violet,
A violent wild iris – but mostly anonymous performers
Yet an important occasion as the Muse at her toilet
Prepared to inform the local farmers
That beautiful, beautiful, beautiful God
Was breathing His love by a cut-away bog.

That was The One, written by Patrick Kavanagh, and a perfect prelude to this week's seven short lessons...