Friends & neighbours

A meeting with neighbours tonight - this is Joan, she's one of the nicest people I've ever met. She was a teacher for the deaf most of her life and signs as a matter of habit. It is beautiful to watch, particularly when she signs and recites poetry.

I'm saddened by Seamus Heaney's death today.

The Harvest Bow by Seamus Heaney

As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.

Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable'