As I’m writing this column, I can quite literally hear the wind blowing outside my windows like it’s a movie set.

It’s very cool and cinematic, but I’m hoping it blows over (pun intended) by the evening, because my mom and I are going to an evening Ash Wednesday mass, and I’d rather not feel my sedan rattle like a leaf on the way.

For those of you who don’t know, Ash Wednesday is the day after Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday to the uninspired. It marks the start of the Lenten season, where Christians prepare themselves spiritually for Easter Sunday. It’s a very solemn season filled with fasting, prayer, and Lenten resolutions like giving up caffeine broken by Palm Sunday (in my experience, anyway).

But besides all of that, guess what else is happening during Lent? That’s right–St. Patrick’s Day. Savannahians like myself almost take it for granted that this is a holiday that folks actually care about. It wasn’t until I went to college that I realized that not everyone got a day off school to go walk around cobblestone streets and laugh at badly-dressed tourists falling down the infamous Bay Street steps, their failed efforts fueled by pints of Guinness and wedge sandals.

This year will be Savannah’s 201st St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which is a pretty remarkable fact if you think about it. Using my desktop calculator, that means that the inaugural St. Patrick’s Day parade occurred in the year 1824. That year was very important in American politics, what with the whole Election of 1824 and Congress ultimately having to pick John Quincy Adams as president.

But if you want the full lowdown on early American history, you can always lean on columnist Tom Hand and his works for more info than you’ll likely ever need on the subject, unless you play a lot of NYT quiz games like me. (Thanks to Mr. Hand, I’m an absolute pro at Flashback).

But in true Gutierrez fashion, I’m capping this weekly column off with some St. Patrick’s Day-adjacent poetry, or poetry from some choice Irish poets. Erin go bragh!

Down by the Salley Gardens, William Butler Yeats 

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.

She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

St. Patrick’s Day, Jean Blewett 

There’s an Isle, a green Isle, set in the sea, Here’s to the Saint that blessed it!

And here’s to the billows wild and free That for centuries have caressed it!

Here’s to the day when the men that roam Send longing eyes o’er the water!

Here’s to the land that still spells home To each loyal son and daughter!

Here’s to old Ireland—fair, I ween, With the blue skies stretched above her!

Here’s to her shamrock warm and green, And here’s to the hearts that love her!

The Little Waves of Breffny, Eva Gore-Booth

The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea, And there is traffic in it and many a horse and cart, But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me, And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart.

A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o’er the hill, And there is glory in it and terror on the wind, But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still, And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind.

The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their way, Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal, But the Little Waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray, And the Little Waves of Breffny go stumbling through my soul.

The Lost Land, Eavan Boland

 I have two daughters.

They are all I ever wanted from the earth. Or almost all.

I also wanted one piece of ground: One city trapped by hills. One urban river.

An island in its element.

So I could say mine. My own.

And mean it.

Now they are grown up and far away and memory itself has become an emigrant, wandering in a place where love dissembles itself as landscape: Where the hills are the colours of a child’s eyes, where my children are distances, horizons: At night, on the edge of sleep, I can see the shore of Dublin Bay.

Its rocky sweep and its granite pier.

Is this, I say how they must have seen it, backing out on the mailboat at twilight, shadows falling on everything they had to leave?

And would love forever?

And then I imagine myself at the landward rail of that boat searching for the last sight of a hand. I see myself on the underworld side of that water, the darkness coming in fast, saying all the names I know for a lost land: Ireland. Absence. Daughter.

Song. James Joyce

My love is in a light attire Among the apple trees, Where the gay winds do most desire To run in companies.

There, where the gay winds stay to woo The young leaves as they pass, My love goes slowly, bending to Her shadow on the grass.

And where the sky’s a pale blue cup Over the laughing land, My love goes lightly, holding up Her dress with dainty hand.

Andrea Gutierrez is the managing editor of the Bryan County News.