Lost in the Moors

Streaks of red stretched across the horizon, the sun beginning to set, the fields meeting the sky in a tight weave. I drove the three visiting Irish poets up and down the hills, around the grid of gravel roads of Buggy Land. It was an early Sunday evening, and nothing was open—not a shop, a grocery store, or a produce stand. So, instead of stopping, we just drove around slowly, passing horses and buggies, boys on horseback, wagons loaded with hay in front of barns.

 We passed Flora’s dawdy house filled with her rugs. We passed the barn where my neighbors made sorghum. We passed the Yutzy’s farm and their purple martin house that was home to the birds, their natural pest control. And we passed another neighbor walking up the road, her black shawl pulled tightly to her chest, the handle of a red wagon in her hand, two toddlers riding in the bed. She waved. In return, I lifted my fingers up from the steering wheel in greeting.

            “Oh, this seems like a scene right out of a Brontë novel,” Jim said.

            I drove on and thought how isolated this landscape and these Amish people must seem to the outside world. Sometimes I had to remind myself that they weren’t overwhelmed by media and news. They stayed out of politics and didn’t vote.

            The poets had been hosted by the nearby university where they’d spent the day giving readings and talks, and socializing with fans and friends. We’d had lunch together, and when I’d asked about their evening plans, they suggested they might come out to my place in the country and watch the presidential debate.

 “Of course!” I said.

 A few hours later I had a supper spread out on the table and the Irish flag run up the pole in front of my old schoolhouse.

After our tour, the Irish poets settled into my living room space, anticipating viewing the debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Then I realized I didn’t have a T.V. And the largest screen in the place was on my laptop. A quick call to my neighbor Donna next door, and I was gathering up tea bags and leading the poets across the yard and through the gap in the fence.

“Where are we going?” Afric asked?

“To the neighbors, I think,” Nell said.

“But the debate is coming on,” Jim said.

“We’ll watch it next door” I tried to explain.

Then the Irish poets were all made comfortable sitting in front of Donna’s wide-screen T.V.

“Isn’t this nice?” Jim said. “You have such a tight community that you can all gather together to watch the debate.”

I began brewing tea in Donna’s kitchen and the community began to grow. Donna’s son and daughter-in-law Jeff and Jenny dropped in and introductions were made all around.

“Oooh, there they are!”  Nell said, pointing to the screen with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton making their entrances, refusing to shake hands.

The Irish clapped.

The rest of us sat silently with our Midwestern poker faces.

“Look at him. He’s big, really big!” Afric said, opening her arms wide.

“Wow-wee!”

“And how tall do you suppose?”

This was going to be fun. The Irish are much more expressive and articulate in response to performances. We American Midwesterners, put a premium on quiet attention, hearing every word, but restraining ourselves from movement or gesticulation.

Once, years ago, I wandered into a movie theatre in Galway City, Ireland. Busloads of school children had filled the seats to view a showing of Wuthering Heights.

“Heathcliff!  Oh, Heathcliff!” The school children called in unison, the whole theatre coming alive, mocking the romanticism of the film, stamping their feet and smacking their lips together to form kisses. “Let me in. I’m lost in the moors. Let me in!”

The children’s response hit a deep sarcastic note, a commentary that amused the audience as much as it shook us out of any naïveté we might hold toward the plot.

I carried the teapot, cups and saucers into Donna’s living room. Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz were instructing the live television audience that there were to be no cheers, boos, or other interruptions. Everyone needed to focus and concentrate.

The Irish poets cheered. “Ah, there she is.”

“Now wait, who are these women in the front row that the camera is panning?”

“Bill Clinton’s lovers.”

“No, they’re not.”

“They are.”

“How did they get in there?”

“Trump rounded them up and brought them.”

And so the first segment of the debate ended with oooohs, ahhhhhs, and oh, no, oh, no.

By the third segment, Trump had begun sniffing.

“What is that he’s doing now?”

“Maybe he’s allergic.”

“Allergic to her.”

The sniffing became so loud and pronounced that Donna grabbed a pencil and paper and began counting. One, two, three. Donna made pencil marks.

The Irish poets kept score. Six, seven, eight.

The television studio audience broke through their silence with a laugh. The Irish poets guffawed.

Then Trump said that the election was rigged. Based on her email problem, Clinton should not have been allowed to run for president. And Trump would appoint a special prosecutor to come after Clinton about her emails.

“Her emails again now, is it?” The poets roared.

“There have never been so many lies, so much deception. . .”

“Everything he just said is untrue,” Clinton said.

The T.V. audience roared.

Donna’s house audience hooted.

“The audience needs to calm down here,” Martha Raddatz said.

“It’s a good thing,” Hillary Clinton said, “that someone with the character of Donald Trump isn’t in the office of the president.”

“Because you’d be in jail,” Trump said.

The T.V. audience whooped and Trump snorted a couple more times.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, we all counted.

“Please,” Anderson Cooper admonished. “Please be quiet. You’re just wasting time.”

Clinton began answering a question about Obamacare and how she would fix it, outlining the problems with rising costs.

Trump wandered the stage

“Oh, look!”  Nell cried,

Trump stood right behind Clinton, towering over her, holding his arm with his opposite hand, swaying back and forth.

“He’s stalking her.”

Twenty-one, twenty-two.

“He can’t possibly win, can he?” Nell asked.

“He can,” I said.

And the chorus of Irish poets’ voices rose to a crescendo. Ohooooooo. An expression of alarm, but one that at the same time seemed to console us all with its injection of levity.

These days I’m trying to recall that levity. This year, and every year when we head into a presidential election season, we need to invite more Irish poets to the States. Brew up some tea, join in with our neighbors, and station ourselves in front of a wide screen T.V. May the poets direct the wind to be at our backs and help us through the debates. May the sun shine warm upon our faces. May the rains fall soft on our fields. May the poets undercut our silence with their expressive rising and falling voices. May we turn to Irish poets on this coming St. Patrick’s Day, and until we meet again, ask them to take our hands and lead us off the moor.

More information about Mary Swander can be found on her website: maryswander.com

I am thrilled to be a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Catch us in the Sunday Round-Up: