home – sethlewis.ie

Layover At Stansted (a poem)

I hear English and Italian
And (I think)
a bit of French
As I’m sitting (one more stranger)
In the airport
On a bench
This assembly
Of the transient
People moving (yet we’re still)
Thrown together
For a moment
With a layover to fill
This collection
Of humanity—
The tired
Sad
Excited
Proves that
Being in proximity
Is not the same at all
As being in community

I’m glad I’m going home

Transplanted

There’s an old Regency manor house near us that has been preserved as a heritage site, beautifully surrounded by manicured gardens that are faithfully tended by volunteers and open to the public. The gardens were planted and arranged over successive generations in the old English style—which means that the plants and trees were imported from all across the globe. This worked particularly well on the Fota estate because of its sheltered conditions. Even its name, Fota, is derived from the Irish “Fód te”, meaning “warm soil”. The arboretum is particularly impressive, boasting some of the finest specimens of pine, cypress and sequoia in Europe. There are also acers and eucalyptus, tasmanian tree ferns, acacia and magnolias that burst open with enormous flowers before the leaves even begin to appear. A walk through Fota gardens is a walk around the world, with the sights, smells, and colours of the Himalayas, Japan, Chile, China, New Zealand, the Pacific Northwest, and beyond.

Sometimes I’ve wondered how trees from California and Australia can grow so well in Ireland. I suppose they don’t have much of a choice in the matter, but they’ve certainly made the best of it. Their roots are deep in the fód te, and I have to strain my eyes to see some of their towering tops. They have not simply survived in a foreign land. They have made it their home, and thrived. When I wander among them, I am encouraged.

The Gardener

When we moved in to our house, the garden was undeveloped. It was a small patch of grass, with a shed. And those things are still there, but they’ve been joined now by a row of roses at the back, with jasmine and passion flowers growing against the wall. Blueberry bushes bloom on one side, with strawberries and grapes beside them. On the other side is an apple tree, a plum tree, and a collection of pots growing a collection of colourful flowers that Jessica cuts and gives away or brings inside for us to enjoy. This year, we’re expanding our window boxes to hold even more flowers. As I write today there are rows of seedlings on the back stoop, reaching up and acclimatising, being prepared for planting—because none of this growth happens overnight. We’ve lived here seven years now, and the progress has been slow. It is measured in months and seasons and years, not hours and days. It was my wife, Jessica, who saw what our undeveloped little plot could become and patiently worked over the years to bring that vision to life. As I go outside to look at the buds forming and opening this spring, I see the fruit of her careful attention and I rise up and bless her for bringing such abundance and beauty to our home.

An Elegy For Our Fireplace

When my father built a home for our family in the hills of Alabama he put a large wood stove in the very centre. A good fire in that stove could heat the entire house, upstairs and down, for most of the night. I grew up splitting logs and carrying them in, building fires and learning to finesse small sparks into roaring warmth. They say firewood warms you twice, and it’s true—first when you cut it, and again when you burn it. The sound of our fire sucking air through the stove vents like breath, the crackling wood, the reassuring smoke from the chimney as I headed in from the winter cold—all are essential pieces of my childhood, baked into my soul by the power of the flames.

The Leak (a poem)

Today I have a poem for you that is inspired by true events in our home. We recently discovered that a slow leak behind the shower had done enormous damage inside our bathroom walls without us realising it. As I considered what had happened I noticed a connection between our home and our hearts. That’s what this poem is about.

The Leak

Silently
the water creeps
behind the tidy
tiles, seeps
into the wood
and insulation
slow and patient
devastation
working hidden
in the dark
drip

drip

Tree House (a poem)

Tomorrow, my wife Jessica and I celebrate twenty years of marriage. Two decades sounds like a lot to me, but—doesn’t everyone say this?—it seems like it’s gone quickly. When we first got married, I wrote a poem for Jessica about how our love was in Spring, and I didn’t know what seasons would come, but with God’s help we would keep growing through them all. Twenty years—and many different seasons—later we’ve made our home in this growing love. That’s what this poem is about:

The Reason For Windows

It’s a good thing I like my house. As Ireland’s third coronavirus lockdown drags on with no end in sight, we’re all getting used to being in our own spaces. One of the reasons I like my house is the windows, especially the ones in the back that let the sun stretch all the way across the floor whenever it takes a fancy. From those same windows, I can watch the songbirds gather at our bird feeder, and I can see the flowers bloom in our little garden. All of these things remind me that the world is bigger than the box I live in.

The Robin And The Oak Tree

Said the Robin to the Oak Tree:
“Friend, I think that you must be
The saddest living thing
That the world has ever seen

Just look at me, and you’ll see why:
I catch the wind and soar on high
While you stay rooted to the ground
And wave your silly branches

Continue reading The Robin And The Oak Tree

The Dog Knew Better

I grew up beside a mountain in Alabama, with a dog. If you want a happy childhood, that’s a good start. Sometimes the dog and I would go up the mountain, just us, with no particular destination in mind. There was always something interesting up there—little run-off streams and rock outcroppings, sunlight through leaves and the awareness of being among innumerable living things. We stayed together, but not too close. The dog and I were interested in different things, probably because I couldn’t smell as well as she could. Still, we stayed within sight, and if I decided to explore in a different direction all I had to say was “Cinnamon, I’m going this way” and she would change course without complaining. I guess there were smells to discover anywhere we went.

A Trip To The Embassy

I was excited. We’d only lived in Ireland a few months—long enough to begin to feel the reality of deep differences, but not nearly long enough to adjust to them. Our second son had just been born, a different experience in a different medical system, and we needed to register his birth at the United States embassy. American soil, in Ireland. It would be nice to get a little taste of all we’d left behind. A few hours on the motorway got us to Dublin, where we found the US embassy—a big round thing looking out of place on its street-corner, like a landed UFO. Like us.