Amy Andrews

Leisure - by William Henry Davies (1871 - 1940)

What is this life if full of care

We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep, or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this, if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

St Patrick’s Day Poem on Shamrocks and Stereotypes.

“Hail glorious Saint Patrick dear saint of our isle
On us thy poor children look down with a smile —”
But I’m not singing hymns and I’m not saying prayers
No, I’m gritting my teeth as I walk down the stairs
And into the street with these louts fiercely drinking
And screeching and lurching, and here’s what I’m thinking —
They’re using a stereotype, a narrow example,
A fraction, not even a marketing sample
To imitate Ireland, from which they don’t come!
So unless that’s just stupid, unless it’s plain dumb,
All these kids from New Jersey and the five boroughs
And hundreds of cities, all drowning their sorrows,
With bottles and glasses and heads getting broken
(Believe me, just ask the mayor of Hoboken)
All that mindlessness, shouting and getting plain stocious —
That isn’t Irish, that’s simply atrocious.
I’ve another word too for it, this one’s more stinging
I call it “racism.” See, just ‘cause you’re singing
Some drunken old ballad on Saint Patrick’s Day
Does that make you Irish? Oh, no — no way.
Nor does a tee-shirt that asks you to kiss them —
If they never come back I surely won’t miss them
Or their beer cans and badges and wild maudlin bawling
And hammered and out of it, bodies all sprawling.

They’re not of Joyce or of Yeats, Wilde, or Shaw.
How many Nobel Laureates does Dublin have? Four!
Think of this as you wince through Saint Patrick’s guano —
Not every Italian is Tony Soprano.

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/17/148752482/a-st-patricks-poem-on-shamrocks-and-stereotypes/

Looking Back on life, love and loss

A year ago today…

I went to a paediatric hospital and held a baby with a very dirty nappy, snotty nose and beautiful smile. At a month old she had no mother to care for her. She was abandoned and alone. I didn’t want to leave her. I wanted to bring her home. I will never forget her.

But I went back to the base, packed and then spent 8 hours in minus 12 degrees in Cluj Napoca Airport waiting for my flight back to England. At 6am we boarded the plane, and left Romania. 

It was a long, tiring and sad day.

A year on I look back on my time in Romania with both sadness, joy and a deeper understanding of what it means to bless and be blessed.