Dublin 3

July 16, 2010

Have forgotten to mention the blue goose on the Thames. She stood beside a sleeping woman on the embankment beside the Globe, and I thought at first she was the woman’s pet. But when the woman left, she was still there, grave, approachable, a little spooky in her calmness. I touched her bill and her head and sat down beside her. It was like sitting down beside a human presence. I regretted going in when the bell began to ring for the play. I worried for her going home that night on the bright streets, wondering whether she were lost or hurt, or perhaps just curious, standing and watching the human flock as we might hers.

Didn’t mention the two boys on the Newgrange trip who were so clearly lovers that the fact that they looked like brothers was a little confusing. One feared for his health in the rain, so they didn’t go to the tomb, but sat in the pavilion talking with each other, drinking out of the same water bottle, exactly where they wanted to be. There was no other world but the space around themselves.

Walked part of the museum circuit, from the Hugh Lane on to the Chester Beatty. Wanted to own a Yeats. Wanted to own a Corot. Exquisite Mogul manuscripts at the Beatty, full of detail and love of a forbidden world. Watched the filming of a piece on the stained glass in the Hugh Lane, after overhearing the planning of it in the café across the street. Ireland is small and poor, and the arts work on approximately the same level we work on in Asheville. Their achievement rate is far higher, though, and whatever notes can be taken on that should be taken.

Still a little feverish, and slept the afternoon.

Jacket still damp from yesterday.