BY PATTY SMITHERMAN

The Great and First Imagination
paints the dawn at Renvyle House
as the world awakens.

The moon holds yet a tea cup of darkness,
moon’s companion, just before it begins
to fade.

Diffuse brilliant light splashes a deep palette
on everything it touches,
clouds and cottages,
mountain, rocks, water,
soft butter white
darkening to gentle ochre gold,
purple, violet, last midnight’s
blue, indigo.

Nothing stays the same
at this tender threshold of transfiguration
between night and day.

Colors fade or deepen,
every object shining back the color it rejects
in fresh transformation of ancient into new.

POET’S NOTES

Kathy and I planned to gather our thoughts for a day and two nights at Renvyle House, a famous hotel where W.B. Yeats spent his honeymoon. Kathy had been to Renvyle House the year before and knew it had space, solarium-like, where we could begin to process our experiences at the end of our trip. We were up at dawn to pull open the curtains of the almost room-wide windows facing east. We were transfixed at the color show the emerging sun made on every visible thing from the mountains north, to Killary Fjord to the little cottages nearby. There was a continual color transformation — our theme word for the trip and our work.

ARTIST’S REFLECTION

I love sunrise. Most days, I pause and notice it gratefully. I’ll never forget waking up in room 54 of Renvyle House to see a perfectly clear sunrise about to happen. lWith warm bedspreads draped over our shoulders and a cup of hot tea in our hands, we witnessed the sunrise as the crescent moon hovered at the big sky’s edge. The mountains glowed. The icy waters glimmered.

BY PATTY SMITHERMAN

The lighthouse on Lough Corrib
stands as a sentinel
guarding the boaters on the lovh.

It is witness
to fierce storms
which whip waters,
fishermen in their boats.

And is witness to
the lough’s complete calm
hiding the life beneath the surface.

The lighthouse, strong and silent,
may also have the Celtic gift
of deep witnessing to feel and
hear from the depths of the lough’s
still
magic
music.

POET’S NOTES

What a wonder and surprise to find a small lighthouse on a rocky point on Lough Corrib near where we stayed at Ballycurrin House. It attests to both the size of the lough and its turbulence. Depp witnessing is the translation of the Celtic word, Teannalach.

ARTIST’S REFLECTION

Surprise! There’s a lighthouse on the eastern shore of Lough Corrib right near Ballycurrin House. The day is becoming more raw and windy by the minute. Charmed by the blue boats and sturdy stone lighthouse, I imagine more than one sailor/pilgrim was blessed to see its beam of light coming through the storm or fog. A blessing and a warning – can it be both?There are rocks here, pay attention, it’s risky! The safe harbor is worth it.