New Englanders: these have been amazing days, have they not? And in man's millionth attempt to capture the essence of these clear, brisk mornings and evenings of spring...

La Sainte-Chapelle

Bending low enough to bless me face to face
        the sun pressed up its many palms
along my arms and cheeks
        to chase the slightest chill,
reaching in through a cathedral canopy
laid in young leaves and the falling petals
of a dogwood tree,
        the air as sweet
        as a single drop of honey
        on the lips of a new love.

The Abomination That Got Away

There were a few things that I wanted to do in Ireland. I was, however, sharing a cottage and a rental car with three other lovely people. And it was for this reason that I was not going to make it to Dublin from our love nest in the Rosses of Donegal, and I was not going to get to meet two fairly recent heroes of mine.

Emails and Facebook messages had flown back and forth, as well as the occasional text once I was across the pond. Will u b able 2 get away from Dublin n spend an eve in Belfast? One was working; the other didn’t have a car. What r the chances that u’ll b in Galway 4 the western Ireland pridefest? Again, work—although one of them held out the possibility to the very end. In that end, however, he was far too busy with a project that deserves your attention and mine. It is because of this project that he IS one of my newest heroes.

Somhairle

Samuel Marr was first made known to me as Somhairle, a rough, traditionally Celtic equivalent to his given name. A longtime friend—also an Irish-Gaelic speaker—had emailed me a link to this man’s blog, seeming of interest to the both of us. The site was soon bookmarked and I resolved that I was going to follow his postings to improve my Irish.

“Ná déan sin!” Somhairle (pron. SO-war-leh) had written me in slightly-mock horror. “I’m still practically a learner myself! I’ll mess you up.” Stubborn, I did it ar aon nós and came to see a young man of great intelligence, drive, compassion—a serious man with high ideals and strong cultural identity, yet who enjoyed the craic with his mates, had a good sense of humo(u)r, and had the inner strength to wrestle not only with the furthering of his education (despite yanked funding), but with being a member of not one but TWO oft-derided minorities.

One day I revved up the computer, clicked Somhairle on the favorites list—and found nothing. The site had been abandoned. Had he not paid up? Was a faulty server not re-routing me to the right page? Had an international cataclysm, a tectonic disaster somewhere on the floor of the Atlantic caused my DSL to not recognize his text and images? Try and try again, I couldn’t pull it up…and I was moving…and I was planning a wedding…and changing careers. So Somhairle was abandoned for the moment, and I resolved to try again in a couple of months.

‘I am the Abomination’

A Facebook poke and a message later and I was back on track. Somhairle informed me that he was clueless to the problem, so I chalked the disaster up to the sub-Atlantic eruption and headed for his URL. At first I thought it again to be a mistake. What I found was a show reel including a parts of a trailer for what had been his baby in the months previous, and which will be airing this very weekend on an Irish national network.

‘Mise an tUafás.’ The word uafás can be translated a few different ways, and none of them should ever apply to anyone but the hateful and the cruel of our ever-shrinking world. “Horror”, “fright”, “terror”; in its adjective form uafásach can mean any of these with an “-ible” or

“-ening”, but what Somhairle was answering to most specifically in the title of his documentary is a refrain of religious conservatives in his own land and, sadly, across our own, namely that homosexuality is an ‘abomination’. Somhairle, in a passionate yet steady, proud yet not angry act of acceptance and defiance, utters these words and claims for himself, “I am the Abomination.”

Some may recall a rather famous poem, learned by just about every Irish student and by a great number of her scattered descendents, by the title “Mise Éire”—“I am Ireland”. Written by the poet and political activist Pádraig Pearse (d. May 3, 1916) it is a passionate yet steady, proud yet not angry, act of defiance to colonial, imperial oppression. The poem is a short, pithy, prophecy-like utterance that claims for Ireland the myths of her past, the reality of her present, and hope for her future as a nation yearning for self. A documentary put out by Seán Ó Riada in 1959 on Irish revolutionary nationalism bears the same title. Somhairle’s documentary seems like it will deal with revolutionary self-governance of a different stripe.

The documentary ‘Mise an t-Uafás' premiers this Sunday, August 30 at 4:30pm EST (9:30pm Dublin time) on the Irish network TG4. Most original programming for TG4 can be seen either live or archived on its website: http://www.tg4.com/. Click on 'TG4 BEO' (TG4 Live) in the header bar or go directly to http://www.tg4.com/scei/beo.asp and watch it in real time; or wait for the archive to be posted within hours of airing. To find the archive, look to the titles in green to the left of the TG4 BEO viewer pop-up. The latest programming is always nearest the top, and will be available either in the “Faisnéis”, “Siamsaíocht” or “Cláir Eile” sections. I myself will be waiting, and will let you know soon where it lands.

Somhairle’s professional and contact information, as well as his first showreel, can be found at his site: http://somhairle.me/ (a simple Google search for ‘Samuel Marr’ and ‘Blog Award’ will pull him up first off). Go directly to the trailer for the documentary at: http://www.youtube.com/user/somhairle.

Not only is the documentary pivotal for being an exposing view of the prejudices against/struggles of homosexuals on the Emerald Isle (traditionally resistant to change of any kind, decidedly skeptical) but it also showcases the younger, more energetic face of the current Celtic Renaissance. Somhairle being an active player in Irish-language revival, the interviews, narrations and news clips within the documentary alternate between English and Irish. There are easily-read subtitles in English for the Irish sections. Viewing the documentary will grant you insight not only into a sexual minority’s work for acceptance within Hibernian society, but also into the growing acceptance of the Irish language: its status is quickly moving from being the language of crusty academics and the marginal, west-coast poor of a former generation, to a modern medium of artistic, political and ideological confluence. Two generations of eye-rolling due to the terrible educational methods that accompanied hopes for language revival in a newly independent Ireland are now finding the language embraced by the most talented young people in the Four Provinces.

Somhairle brings to the screen a vibrant bilingualism and a liberating, level-headed defiance. See it played out for yourselves.

Leis Sin, Léigh Mé ‘Amor’ / And Then I Read ‘Amor’

And Then I Read 'Amor'.

In the whirlings of the days
and noise of the nights
attentions flung from paten to plate
and glasses klink, and laughter flies,
I felt it steady: a constant, quiet mass.
And I longed to rest on it
to run up on the welcomed shoal.

To catch your glance was to melt the crowd
and part them. And your voice—
jabs and punch-lines softened to whispers;
an ocean floor stretched out to me vast
inviting
frightening
expanses to search and mine.
But I held treasures too fragile to risk
with whom I thought you were.
And you, with treasures too precious to entrust
to myself.
I’d fumbled before.

So your eyes over dark pints met my quick removal (less quick
as day passed to next),
“So then”-s and “Do you…?”-s, a short-lived reception
afraid that in a well-enjoyed chat in the statued nave
or in a bit-too-long return gaze
the fissures in my slip-shod dam would burst against
the flood of your own.
And all would know.


Afraid that your eyes were lying.

Afraid that they weren’t.

Afraid that your soul brewed with forces strong surpassing the frame
whose sturdy beauty was obvious to all—
until Neruda and the flutist of an Emerald tune
bowed low to honor the entrance of respect
somewhere among the six staggered bottles of red wine.

Forces once confirmed, I let the waters knock me down.

However lovely your eyes in that sea-harbor hue
they hadn’t prepared me for their power
to sink my soul in its base
and then search
and then reach
and then love
the unlovable in me.

Lips that many have dreamed to fall upon
poured forth a wisdom rarely heard
among the sons of men.

That form, undressed by lusts,
abused in cravings of a mind’s dark eye,
pushed tender purity into my own
misused
and misguided.
The heat in which I was healed.

And your hands? Your daunting hands—
trained for the kill—
they risked
to hold out your trembling heart to me

admitting to former pain

yet brave enough to love again

a mirror open, transfixed in heaven’s love

and an anchor of mine was laid that night in you.
Pray God—He’ll see the voyage through.


**********


One word written leaves too many left unsaid.
Say many? Then the poetry falls dead.
No word at all…the heart would break instead.

GAEL

Tá blag leite agam le déanaí, agus ann ach nár bhual mé dorn ar an údar. Cinnte go mbeadh sé deacair ar fad é sin a dhéanamh agus seisean thar lear…

It was full of vitriol, of all-too-common Irish self-loathing and, I must say, a good deal of ignorance. But what most angered me about this blog I read quite recently was that it was rife with pragmatic money-logic and had no regard for the soul.

I know: "What is the soul?" There was a time, I think, that the term was readily understood in its religious context. Yet, by extension, even for the most irreligious among us, I believe that we can define it as that which makes an individual most unique, and that from which one contributes to the world in a way that no one else can do. The poet, the prophet and the artist can go further (and most, I'd say, have something of either within us) and assert that the "soul" is that element within us that finds pleasure in what lies beyond sight, beyond words, what the mind can put together to create new worlds, new visions, new sounds; it binds affections, weaves memories into dreams, roots time into eternity. It is something like imagination, yet creeps into the vital places much more ineradicably than just "an imagining". To tear it up would kill the prophet, the poet, the artist... It would do some damage to the pragmatist, but without much howl and perhaps there would be little noticeably different in his gait once the deed were done.

I will not link to this blog. I will not stain your mind with the images, but I will sum it up as such: too much money is being poured into supporting the Irish language; we Irish are just a bunch of fuck-ups anyway; let's use the money for something better, like making ourselves more British.

The benefit of reading the blog, in my own case, was that I had to ask myself again: why on earth for the past 10 years have I been studying the most difficult Indo-European language still in existence when so few people speak it natively and not many more than them show an honest interest in it even in its own land? My own history and thoughts on the language could fill a small book. I have just about discarded it in disgust at times along the decade only to pick up again, avidly, ravenously. Why the love-hate, and why the hundreds of hours of effort?

Because of my own heritage? Yes, especially at first: a connection to my ancestors.
Because I'm a linguist? Absolutely, the mechanics of the language are fascinating.
Because I love a challenge? Not really, but I found myself determined.
Because, like any language, it makes you think differently about reality? Quite so, and the Celtic vision of the world as I force myself to think in this tongue is something that I would be poorer without.
Because I believe in uniqueness of culture? And there is no better way than through a language.
Because I believe in revival for the sake of improvement, in cultural renaissance, in rising from the ashes and in seeing injustice reversed? Because I'm a gay man with whom oppression resonates, who is enraged to the core when he sees a dominant force squelch the identity out of a people? Because I'm a gay man still struggling to be himself in the face of a scoffing majority, indignant--perhaps self-righteously--when a people will not reclaim their own soul for themselves and will cut the legs off those who try?

GAEL

Banba flails and foams.

Romantics write the words that will not be heard
above the nay and say no more for what’s the use.
An army of warrior poets wrestling under the waves
of indolent cynics.
So much élan to lose one’s thoughts
and trample dreams and be
without
a name.

The children of her children
scattered
Stand upon the five shores
mourned
Banba fades beneath a wave.

Corelli's Mandolin

Sitting upon my shelf for over a year now has been a book, one of many given to me by a dear, well-read friend. I finally pulled it down, and it was my principle reading for this last week at the Jersey Shore.

This was one of the most unexpected treasures I have come upon in the last year. Are you interested at all in Mediterranean culture? In the history of the Axis powers in World War II? In classical music, cuisine, Ancient Greek literature, foreign curse words or budding, young love?

Or mature love. A widower's love as he explains it to his daughter. A love that wants love to be real and grow beyond mere passion. Two-thirds through the exquisitely written pages I read this, and found in it a pearl of striking wisdom:

"Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and
then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to
work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable
that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not
breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of
eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day, it is not
lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No,
don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which
any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned
away, and this is both an art and a fortunate
accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each
other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches
we found that we were one tree and not two." -Louis de Bernieres, Corelli's Mandolin, chapt. 47

On a related note, read this article from the Wild Reed blog concerning the role of Eros in relationships with God, and its role in spiritual relationships with partners and spouses:

http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2009/07/sometimes-i-wonder.html

The First Post > Fáilte Isteach!

And so, here I am. The last man in my generation to get a cell phone is now the last man in my generation to post online for the world to see. Next stop: Facebook, before all my friends forget I'm even here.

You know what I'm absolutely lovin' right now? Juanes! on my http://www.last.fm/ account. Most specifically "A Dios le pido", with a fairly typical Juanes-type beat that can't leave you without swinging your hips and (if you don't already know Spanish) wishing you knew Spanish.

Current book of interest: Il Gattopardo by Leopardi. I hear there's even a classic black-and-white version of the movie. Go see it and tell me if it's a hit. It follows the sagacity of a Sicilian principe during the changeover of power due to the Italian Risorgimento, forming the current nation out of a number of weak kingdoms and city-states, changing the peninsula's identity in a way not known since the days of the crumbling Roman Empire...like a thin veneer that is; in substance, nothing really changes at all, and the "new" nation is taken with the same I'll-do-what-I-need-to-for-survival-and-enjoy-a-good-red-wine-with-my-bruschetta [and a] grain of salt that comically characterizes Italian life and literature.

Best latest movies seen: X-Men: Origins and the new Star Trek; and I saw Amélie again, and still find it better with every new viewing. Never seen it? Can you stand subtitles? Sooo worth it. And you'll even love accordion music by the time the credits roll (but don't let that scare you away...).

And never ever ever watch a movie called "Cowboy Junction" if you at all value your short time on earth.

Live long and prosper.

Sin sin, a chairde! Beidh mé le fáil arís ar ball!