leonardcohenforum.com

Donegal Remembered
On a bus tour through the Julian Alps,
vertigo-towering, mica-pocked, we swing
and twist our way by the Triglav, through cart-
narrow roads and pass a single stone cottage

tied precariously to an escarpment.
It is surely like Donegal in its
isolation. When the winter snows come
tumbling in how can that woman make it

to a shop some twenty miles away, down
careening ledges of rock infested
valley? She will be snow-bound, literally
hibernating, as house bound as that

Donegal widow I once mused would be
on a rain-lashed Sunday morning as she
might pray her holy picture-stuffed missal
instead of making it to Sunday Mass.

I'm not familiar with, or at least remembering, Donegal. I've recently returned to the flat land of Florida from a brief visit to the Grand Canyon, though, and your poem evokes that same wonder at the isolation of some people in those parts and the impact of treacherous weather on their lives. How their homes survive, how they can even negotiate their lives, and how adaptable they either must become or become by choice. Again, your poem is packed with intense words and images. Please refresh me on the significance of "Donegal," so I can appreciate that aspect, too.

Thanks Liz for your appreciatio.
Donegal is a county in the north west of Ireland, adjoining Derry and the north of Ireland.
The significance of Donegal is the similarity of landscape and areas of isolation.
The poem is about similarities in human experience despite race, creed, colour, religion and ethnic background...