Ireland 5

August 2, 2012

Hagardon is the name I have consistently misrepresented as Hagerdorn.


Crazed girl on Bridge Street, standing in front of cars, with her dog on a leash. One man or another would pull her aside, and then she would rush back into the street, crying something none of us could understand. The dog was calm and perplexed. I think it was theater and he was in on it, except that for theater she was in mighty danger.
After a number of misdirections, a reading of a Lady Gregory play at The Harp. I think it was called The Workhouse Ward. In any event it took place in a workhouse, and lay all in the expression. I thought that Synge had invented that lush, singing, supple stage language for Irish, but perhaps Lady Gregory did, for her language is as good as his, and the use of it possibly more “modern.” Had a longer talk with Peter there, wherein he filled me in further on the changes of his life since he came to the Blue Raincoat. It sounds like he’s trying to convince me it was the right thing, whereas I never thought otherwise. He introduced me to David Williams, who teaches theater at an OSU branch in Newark, Ohio. Also met Niall, the dark god who is the leader of the Blue Raincoat. He is the one I had in my mind’s eye when I was describing the difference between the Irishman and the Irish artist. Peter is in a play in Tobercurry Sunday night. He didn’t tell me the title but kept saying it was a “very old Irish play.” I have a ticket to something here, but may do that instead, for the sake of a friendship all one sided anyway. Both Peter and Liam mentioned how long and informative my letters were, and how glad they were to get them. I wondered if it was necessary to say, “Then why didn’t you write back?” Didn’t say it in any case.

Hiked to the Model Art School, which is new and glorious since my last visit. Yeats, father and son, in two rooms, works I had seen before when they were in the library. The rest is given up to European artists whose work is not as good as mine, and I had my fizzy water and gloated over that.   A bride walks into and out of the Glass House door, freezing. I bet she thought an August wedding would be safe. We'd grumble at an October like this.   Some poems from the day:  
Laurel for the Laureate

This morning early I watched the
   sea-cloud over Knocknarea,
concealing her sometimes as if she were
   a table or an ordinary hill,
then revealing her of a sudden
   in a flash of blue swords.

I thought of this when you stood on stage,
   sir, sometimes an old man
with trouble remembering,
   sometimes the blue fire falling
and the jeweled fields flattened with it,
   in the field the white flowers wrenched aside.


The Crazed Girl

The crazed girl is stopping traffic
on Bridge Street, running n front of cars
with her dog on a leash
and her dark hair a cloud around her.

I think “what a country, that can
have crazed girls!”
Bring the sane girls out to drink the water,
eat the herb, whatever it takes.



Sligo Man

Do you think it’s possible to love a Sligo man
with his rolling farmy walk
and the way he glances from side to side?

Some say can’t and some say can.
I’ve heard all the travelers’ talk,
but, finally, listen to me; I’ve tried.



In the Historic Place


The gray stones of the houses
and the gray stones of the houses
and the gray stones of the houses–

and the sudden light where the shells came through,
and the instant stars when the pitched roof went,
and the red flowers of the garden bent aside.