The Gift of a Friend

We're meeting today in an office building near the Grand Canal in Dublin.  I've not been this far south in this part of the city.  If time allows, I may stroll along the canal so that I can find this:


Lines written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin
"Erected in Memory of Mrs. Dermot O'Brien"
by Patrick Kavanagh

O commemorate me where there is water,
Canal water preferably, so stilly
Greeny at the heart of summer. Brother
Commemorate me thus beautifully.
Where by a lock Niagariously roars
The falls for those who sit in the tremendous silence
Of mid-July. No one will speak in prose
Who finds his way to these Parnassian islands.
A swan goes by head low with many apologies,
Fantastic light looks through the eyes of bridges -
And look! a barge comes bringing from Athy
And other far-flung towns mythologies.
O commemorate me with no hero-courageous
Tomb - just a canal-bank seat for the passer-by.

Source.

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