Author Archives: Bill Fitzsimons

The loveliness of lilies, the magnificence of marigolds, the delight of dahlias in my garden shrine. Forgive me for waxing lyrical, but each year I fall in love with the annual renewal of Nature’s bounty. My heart sings with joy … Continue reading →

Strolling in the garden at midnight under the pale ghost light of the moon, a light breeze fanning me, I feel a connection with the sheer abundance of flowers and shrubbery, the smell of growth around me. Although I cannot … Continue reading →

Dawn raise its grey head above the horizon and small birds shake out their feathers, find their voices. I also raise my own grey head but cannot find a voice to greet the morning. Another dull day, a day of … Continue reading →

I remember well those golden days when the world was fresh, and I was young and eager, apprenticed to the trade of life. I recall listening to the salmon’s plash in pools of bright water; I see again the quick … Continue reading →

I sometimes walk at sunset through the long woods up beyond my house where the mournful owl swoops among the darkening trees. I pause and listen to the rustle and scurry of unseen feet, the various mutterings of the forest. … Continue reading →

With passion and with bardic fire you shaped a golden past; weaving from the threads of Time ancient stories, ancient rhyme, you massaged the nation’s ego with visions which would last. Yeats, your poet’s words awoke the slumbering nation’s heart: … Continue reading →

There’s no accounting for taste, as the man said when he kissed the cow, was a favourite saying of my mother. I counted it highly among my many memories of childhood. But there’s no accounting for my mother’s quirky sayings. … Continue reading →

Someday I will go on a journey to the mythical isle of Ithaca, across Homer’s wine-dark sea. I will be seduced by the singing of the Sirens, sailing close to the rocks and finding the key to the realm of … Continue reading →

“A PASSAGE TO INDIA…” …or some other far-flung destination is what my disillusioned spirit craves. To escape the humdrum of the quotidian, the stress of everyday monotony is, I believe, the duty – nay, the imperative – of the questing … Continue reading →

Tonight, she weeps in sorrow for all her lost dead boys; all those who blindly follow and believe their leader’s lies. She’s the universal mother and she’s black or white or brown; but her sorrow knows no colour when she … Continue reading →