Go on go on go on go on go on

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  • 32 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 13th, 2023
  • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.workstoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•Hey Lemmy, what's your favorite poem?English
    3·
    7 days ago

    Hallaig, by Sorley MacLean.Here translated by the poet from Scots Gaelic:

    ‘Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig’

    The window is nailed and boarded through which I saw the West and my love is at the Burn of Hallaig, a birch tree, and she has always been

    between Inver and Milk Hollow, here and there about Baile-chuirn: she is a birch, a hazel, a straight, slender young rowan.

    In Screapadal of my people where Norman and Big Hector were, their daughters and their sons are a wood going up beside the stream.

    Proud tonight the pine cocks crowing on the top of Cnoc an Ra, straight their backs in the moonlight – they are not the wood I love.

    I will wait for the birch wood until it comes up by the cairn, until the whole ridge from Beinn na Lice will be under its shade.

    If it does not, I will go down to Hallaig, to the Sabbath of the dead, where the people are frequenting, every single generation gone.

    They are still in Hallaig, MacLeans and MacLeods, all who were there in the time of Mac Gille Chaluim: the dead have been seen alive.

    The men lying on the green at the end of every house that was, the girls a wood of birches, straight their backs, bent their heads.

    Between the Leac and Fearns the road is under mild moss and the girls in silent bands go to Clachan as in the beginning,

    and return from Clachan, from Suisnish and the land of the living; each one young and light-stepping, without the heartbreak of the tale.

    From the Burn of Fearns to the raised beach that is clear in the mystery of the hills, there is only the congregation of the girls keeping up the endless walk,

    coming back to Hallaig in the evening, in the dumb living twilight, filling the steep slopes, their laughter a mist in my ears,

    and their beauty a film on my heart before the dimness comes on the kyles, and when the sun goes down behind Dun Cana a vehement bullet will come from the gun of Love;

    and will strike the deer that goes dizzily, sniffing at the grass-grown ruined homes; his eye will freeze in the wood, his blood will not be traced while I live.

    And here a reading by the poet set to music by the late great Martyn Bennett:

    https://vimeo.com/25562404?fl=pl&fe=sh

  • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.workstoTechnology@lemmy.world•Scientists uncovered the nutrients bees were missing — Colonies surged 15-foldEnglish
    2·
    9 days ago

    I’m all for this innovation if it means commercial bee farmers use the supplement and it helps native bees compete for natural pollen. People get very sentimental about honeybees, but honestly even as a hobbyist with just a few colonies I feel like a “baddie”. There are 200+ species of bees in the UK, most living in tiny colonies. At the moment bumblebee queens are out foraging for pollen and nectar, enough so they can start laying (only the queens live through winter). In my hives the overwintered workers are also out foraging, thousands of them. Multiply that by the hundreds of hives in a commercial operation and you can see the issue.

  • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.workstoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•Have you ever traveled solo? How was your experience?English
    2·
    30 days ago

    I love travelling solo. My first big experience was in 1976, touring the UK alone on a rail pass. I was really nervous, but it was great and I was hooked. I cycled around Connemara a few years later, walked the Cornish cliff paths too. Always had a better time than when travelling with someone else. The peak was probably a few weeks in Kenya, using local buses and trains. Last year I had a week in Tokyo, brilliant visit.

    What I like best is being able to change my plans depending on mood, weather etc without consulting anyone. I also meet more people - I’m no longer shy about striking up a convo, or practising my terrible language skills.