Pure ugliness is another form of environmental blight. Ireland has the most beautiful landscape and yet nobody seems to care that it is blemished with more and more fengshui-opposed telephone poles. Those poles should be removed as they have been in most European towns and villages. Yet, driving back to Dingle from Tralee, along the stretch that is being repaved there are even more poles waiting to be set up, instead of using the opportunity to bury the wires while repaving the road. Electricity belongs underground; we are surely not healthier for being under its crisses and crosses. And our unseeing eyes, tho' used to the spectacle and so shutting it out, still suffer from the sight. A great Native American once foresaw the future which he described as people wandering about under endless spider webs. Fie on the planning!

Tara

They buried Tara underneath the grass

And herded bullocks o'er the graves of Kings

And cursed us for the memory that clings

To our dead lions, not their living ass.

They joyed to see the Celtic culture pass

And all its glories, song and art, take wings

And now the dogs they do pretend it stings,

Souls hidden in impenetrable brass,

Because some passing alien steals the name

Not they but we held sacred...hush you dogs--

Sorrows divine can touch you not, you may

Never be champions of our island's fame

Who changed its harp notes for the grunts of hogs

Your Tara is...

Tara-de-boom-de-ray

This poem was written by Geoge Russell (AE) the almost forgotten hero of the Irish Renaissance. One would do well to look into his works.