In Corrogue

Sea of Clouds 

A bank of mist rolls down the mountain

like a breath of God in the morning.

White and smoky cloud conjugate.

The ghost of the waxing moon yields.

On the left hand corner of the horizon

a prism of colour shivers through wet sunlight.

My wish is not for gold – just a

thank you, thank you, thank you -

rolling out as surely as the ocean tide.

This week in Corrogue…

The rains came. With the rain came intervals of cloud, sun showers and high wind. I had been just about keeping up with the weeding. Now they have romped ahead. As soon as I finish this piece I will be donning gardening gloves and getting the sickle to chop away at the knee high growth.

My suspicion this year is that given the cold temperatures in March and August that the early vegetables are not going to be prolific. But the late and autumn vegetables – white turnip, swede (rutabaga), brussel sprouts – are looking extremely happy in their beds. The rain has helped the potatoes leaf as well. Given our chilly days I have my doubts that I will be unduly worried about the prospect of blight, which needs hot and humid weather to strike. The rosemary, sage and lavender are beginning to throw off the effects of being frostbitten in April.

Despite concentrating on vegetables and herbs I do have a love of flowers. It’s the spring flowers that I especially appreciate. Pink cilenta just beats purple aquilegia in flowering. Along with a white chrysanthemum, these were all slips given to us the first year of making a garden in Corrogue by our neighbours Brenda and John Joe Gaffney.

There is something about swopping plants that is very bonding in friendships. This year I have given away some slips of chocolate mint, St. John’s wort, some kale and oca (a Peruvian potato that has leaves that look like shamrocks) and have been given a blackcurrent bush and cornflowers. Plants make great housewarming plants. It was particularly satisfying to send some plants north of the border to a young girl who is working her first garden with her grandfather as mentor.

We were driving back from Sligo yesterday and I was marvelling at the multitude of wildflowers in the hedgerows at this time of year. I can’t be too hard on weeds. They too are wildflowers. I felt moved by the fertility and bounty of this planet in the delicate billowing of cow parsley and the brazen canary colours of wild cabbage. Walking through Slish Wood beside Lough Gill (watery home of Yeats’ Lake Isle of Innisfree) you could see great cataracts of peaty water gushing down the mountain to feed the lake.  Lough Gill supplies most of the water in County Sligo. What a blessing to have pure water.

Which is why I was happy to sign an email petition protesting gold mining up in the Andes. The chemicals used to mine would have poisoned the water supply of an indigenous population that already has a very good standard of living. This week in Corrogue I thought locally and acted globally.

© Bee Smith