Tuar ceatha

Leprechauns are not twee beings dreamed up by the tourist board, but warriors of legend...Their mission, their life’s work, is to protect the gold. What better way to hide it than to become a joke, a story nobody takes seriously?
~Kathy Bryson

Hi folks! Happy Poetry Friday! How did this week get away from me? I have been working on a printable pdf "Poetry in the Halls" packet for high schools (like the one I made for younger grades in 2019). I'm just not done, though! I don't want to rush.

If you have a poem you think might be great for reading on the way to class, email me at tabatha(at)tabathayeatts(dot)com. I could use something funny.

I did finish this National Poetry Month logo:

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In honor of St Patrick's Day, a poem (from 2019) about a rainbow.

photo by Lux Raimbow Rafael

Five things about the rainbow:
by Tabatha Yeatts

1. The rainbow is unconcerned about being person-seen. She will dart out when everyone is still inside, wondering where they left their umbrellas.
2. She hopes that the hill doesn't notice how often she alights near him. Or if he does, that he starts wishing for rain.
3. Though the rainbow's trying not to be obvious with her attentions, she can't help but appreciate how very soft his mossy sections are. The grass IS actually greener on his side.
4. She accidentally blushes a double rainbow when his flowers brush up against her. The people who spot her capture photo evidence of her embarrassment.
5. Maybe other locations would like a warm and dazzling rainbow now and then, but she moves around less and less. She feels lit up here, even when it doesn't rain.

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Laura Purdie Salas has the Poetry Friday round-up at her blog Small Reads for Brighter Days. Thanks, Laura!

Toy theaters

Long before Netflix or video games, these tiny paper theaters served as home entertainment, outlets for imagination crafted for young people but popular with adults, too.
~Wendi Maloney for the Library of Congress, who has dozens

Theaters made of paper for Art Thursday. I love these so much I could go on and on. I saw one with a paper pit orchestra in front...how great is that??

Mon Theatre, a short-lived but prolific twice-monthly magazine, was published in Paris by Albert Mericand. It provided characters and scenes for this large Art Nouveau style theater.
Tiefenschaerfe

Toy theatre with Little Red Riding Hood
Tiefenschaerfe

Schreibers Papiertheater, Bühnenhintergrund
Unknown author

Silhouettes
John Wolff, publisher

Tafel aus "Puppen- und Kasperlspiele", 1925
Franz Wacik - Dorotheum

Der Freischütz
Benno Mitschka

A holiday at sea

The first things that she took from me were selfishness and sleep
She broke a thousand heirlooms I was never meant to keep
She filled my life with color, canceled plans, and trashed my car
But none of that was ever who we are
~Brandi Carlile, "The Mother"

For Music Monday, Brandi Carlile:

Beannacht

The eternal world and the mortal world are not parallel, rather they are fused.
~John O'Donohue

birthday card by my mom

Happy Poetry Friday! How are y'all doing? I had a lovely birthday earlier this week. Thank you for the good wishes :) Next week I am hoping to celebrate the 16th anniversary of starting this blog, assuming I can get myself organized.

Two poems today, starting with a blessing from John O'Donohue. Isn't his voice great?



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On the Subject of Poetry
by W.S. Merwin

I do not understand the world, Father.
By the millpond at the end of the garden
There is a man who slouches listening
To the wheel revolving in the stream, only
There is no wheel there to revolve.

He sits in the end of March, but he sits also
In the end of the garden; his hands are in
His pockets. It is not expectation
On which he is intent, nor yesterday
To which he listens. It is a wheel turning...

read the rest here

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My Juicy Little Universe has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Heidi!

Miniature knights

All these portrayals we see of knights fighting must be absolute rubbish because knights in armour could literally have only had two or three blows and then they'd have had to sit down to have a cup of tea.
~Mark Strong

For Art Thursday, wee medieval illustrations of knights. For information about medieval manuscript art, check out Smart History (The Center for Public Art History).

Knights in combat
Chroniques de Saint-Denis

Duel of Volker the minstrel and Islan the monk
Unknown author

Detail of the Maastricht Book of Hours
Unknown miniaturist from Liège-Maastricht area, ca. 1300-1325

René d'Anjou Livre des tournois France Provence XVe siècle
Barthélemy d'Eyck

Folio 8 recto from the Aberdeen Bestiary

Your love is my love

I don't tweet, Twitter, email, Facebook, look book, no kind of book. I have a land line phone at my home - that's the only phone I have. If my phone rang every day like everyone else around me, I would lose my mind.
~Patti LaBelle

For Music Monday, Got to Be Real (originally sung by Cheryl Lynn). I prefer to only share the singer's own channel, but you've got to see how joyous Mariah Carey and Patti LaBelle look:

Fairy stories

In the Irish myth cycles, the land of Tir na nOg is the realm of the Otherworld, the place where the Fae lived and heroes visited on quests. It was a place just outside the realm of man, off to the west, where there was no illness or death or time, but only happiness and beauty.

It is important to note that Tir na nOg was not so much an “afterlife” as it was a an earthly place, a land of eternal youth, that could only be reached by way of magic.
~LearnReligions.com

The most famous story associated with Tir na nOg (Land of Eternal Youth) is that of Oisin and Niamh:

Golden-haired Niamh is the princess of Tír na nÓg, the Land of Youth, who dreamt of Oisín and comes to ask him to return to Tír na nÓg. He gladly does, and they marry. After more than 300 years of living together, Oisín, who does not realize how much time has passed, asks to visit Ireland. Niamh, who realizes he will be disappointed, reluctantly agrees, warning him not to touch the ground there. He accidentally does, whereupon he ages three hundred years and dies without seeing Niamh again.

Niamh and Oisin

Wishing you could turn over our problems to the fairies and let them handle it? Poet Claire Hermann considers it, thinking about the myth of "the fairy tithe," where every seven years a "fee" must be paid or a penalty will be invoked. What if you wanted the penalty?

A tithe to Hell
by Claire Hermann

Ay at the end of seven years we pay a tiend to hell;
I am sae fair and fu o flesh and feared it be mysel.
—Tam Lin, Child Ballad 39A

I walk alone in the winter field,
and men in camo stomp over to inform me this is private property.
I look up at Orion in the still of midnight,
and the neighbor’s security light comes on.
The forests out east are pulped and pelleted,
and the swamp rises salty over the roots of the cypress,
and we pour exhaust into the mouths of the sky
until it spits back hurricanes and heat waves.
The hills above the ocean char to black.
I am done with petitions and marching.
Let us leave bowls of milk on the steps for the fae.
Let them creep from underground...

read the rest here

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[fiction instead of lies] has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Tanita!