A New View of the Irish

Actually, an old view, but one that I have only recently come into contact with.

from The Vistor
Maeve Brennan

Home is a place in the mind. When it is empty, it frets. It is fretful with memory, faces and places and times gone by. Beloved images rise up in disobedience and make a mirror for emptiness. Then what resentful wonder, and what half-aimless seeking. It is a silly state of affairs. It is a silly creature that tries to get a smile from even the most familiar and loving shadow. Comical and hopeless, the long gaze back is always turned inward.

******

The trees around Noon Square grew larger, as daylight faded. Darkness stole out of the thickening trees and slurred the thin iron railing around the houses, and spread quickly across the front gardens, making the grass go black and taking the color from the flowers. The darkness of night fell on the green park in the middle of the square and rose fast to envelop the tall patient houses all around. The street lamps drew flat circles of light around them, and settled down for the night.

I can only hope that these small word portraits reveal the rest of the wonder that awaits me as I read this book.  If so, I can only think that I will want to read everything I can possibly find by this fine writer.