There used be an old British Telecom Ad and the strapline was: “It’s good to talk!” Now I am aware that British Telecom were about selling the art of talking and in a sense playing to what for most of us is a natural part of life and existance. I suppose in that sense it was an easy sell. Those of you that have been brave enough to read my previous Blogs will realise that I put great value on communication in all of its myriad forms. Communication rather than money makes the world go round. Look no further than the success of texting, blogging, email, mobile technology and you will quickly come to the conclusion that we do like to stay in touch.
I am reading and re-reading a book about the Tyrone Gaeltacht (Irish speaking region). It is really a series of mini-stories about the last native Irish speakers in that region. Many factors contributed to the decline and disappearance of the native tongue-an oppressive National School system, emigration, widespread intolerance plus a range of other influences all of which took their toll until the native speakers became fewer and fewer in number and disappeared completely in the 1950’s. The thing that struck me more than any other factor though was that the final blow for the language in that region was that the last remaining speakers of Irish were so scattered throughout the Tyrone countryside that in the end they never got a chance to communicate to one another in their mother tongue ever. Without communication the language died. A language is the soul of any nation and without language communities die. Without language we have no collective soul. Without language the fundamental relationships that underpin life and underscore who we really are die.
For life, for survival, for forgiveness, for wealth, for success, for happiness, for love, for well-being there must be communication. Talk to somebody today. It might just be that sliding door moment. You might just change somebody’s life. You might even save a life.
About two years ago I was delayed at an airport in the USA and feeling bored I picked up a best seller; one of those books that was high on the success of a recommendation on the Oprah Winfrey show. It was ‘The Five People You Meet in Heaven’, by Mitch Albom and I read it faster than I ever read any book before. It’s an easy read but it’s deep. One of the central themes relates to the connection between seemingly random or unnoticed events in our daily lives and how such events or other often seemingly minor deeds can unknowingly seriously impact on the fate and lives of others. Yep…speak to somebody today. As you make your way home or wander through the shops or go to the football or do whatever it is that you do at the weekend, speak to somebody…somebody out there needs you…that’s for sure…
So my way of communicating today will once again reside in a couple of poems that I wrote over the last few years. There is no doubt that they are personal and in a sense reflect what I want to say this wet Friday evening. Both poems contain some anger and some frustration and both are laced with a generous dash of desperation but both I believe contain a message of hope… even if that seems a tad elusive on first reading.
One is about my own emotions and is essentially a weave of some personal feelings and my love of nature; the other is an anti-war statement and an expression of the feelings that consume me as I listen each day to the news and learn of the new casualties of conflict on all sides the world over. Once again, I hope that you enjoy!
A Random Day in February
The hard, cold, unyielding landscape
Of a perverse beauty,
That radiates, yet gives begrudgingly,
Beauteous to behold
Cold to warm, cold to colder
She rips the very heart
From within
The giving soul
That gazes in awe of
What she does and doesn’t offer.
Pebbles, occasionally a strange and hastily hewn rock
But mostly random grains of
Glittering sand
She casts upon the nearby forlorn shore;
And yet the incessant longing is for more.
What drives desire?
Remains the searing question
Posed by every single and gentle contour of her form
The rare needle of sunlight
That reluctantly dazzles in parsimonious majesty
Giving way to just occasional hope
Consuming the body of the ever watchful sentinel
Of her soul.
War
Glorious to die for one’s country
My ass,
Brave, yes
I met death in an Alpine pass
The fighting done
Heart set on home,
An inglorious end in an Alpine pass,
Brave, yes,
Glorious, my ass!
They can wear with pride their flowers red,
A medal, a row of them,
Gold, bronze, silver,
A ribbon,
A heart of purple
What use to me, as I am dead in an
Alpine Pass
Yeah, my ass.
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
October 14, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Elaine
Jimmy,
nice post – good read thanks. Also nice to get to know you a bit better over the last 2 days. What struck me was the fact that was the very book (5 people to meet in heaven) I brought with me to Dublin to read in my spare time while on the train or in the evening. Thanks for the stories and crash course in marketing the past 2 days.
Cheers
Elaine
October 16, 2009 at 6:20 pm
jimmyhill
It was great to meet you too! Thank you for the nice comment…I need all of the encouragement that I can get!
October 16, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Ruth McKenna
Hey Jimmy, for some reason the subject line of this blog caught my eye last week & I knew I wanted to read it. I don’t read all of them…too many words 🙂 but what you’ve written about communication…it’s bang on the money. Thanks for the reminder. Ruth