The Forge

All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end and square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music.
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows.
Seamus Heaney

More grey murkiness but I went to Skibbereen being in charge of the weekly shop - Himself putting up boards and doing technical stuff behind the cooker. I'm not very good at shopping anymore so goodness knows what I've bought  but there seems enough to keep us going for the week. I came back via Ballydehob - so much excitement - and blipped the companion mural to one from the other day other day. This is the side entrance to Levis Corner House which is a well known, colourful and eccentric watering hole -  what's now the outback and the grassy knoll  (outdoor living due to covid) presumably was originally the forge. If you look really carefully you might be able to see one of the huge heads used in the Halloween Jazz  procession. All very high voltage!