Category: Memories
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the four green fields blog5: a poet’s grave
[A roadside flower, ready to spread it’s seed. Co Sligo, Ireland. Photo is mine.] When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; ~~from When You are…
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The four green fields blog4: An old cemetery & my Irish family
[A very creaky gate leading into an old cemetery. Photo is mine.] Suaimhneas Siorai Air ~~Old Irish Epitaph “Eternal Rest be Upon Him/Her” The green and rusted rotating gate made a noise that seemed more like a stifled scream of metal against metal. It pierced my ears. The harshness of the sound, under other circumstances,…
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the four green fields blog3:the burren
[Where we were. Photo is mine.] Burren (‘b^ren0 n. A limestone area on the North Clare coast in the Irish Republic, famous for its wildflowers, caves, and dolmens. The Burren is a lot of things. It’s a place in Ireland, a route to tour, and a UNESCO Heritage Site. To me, it’s something else altogether.…
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the walking stick: father’s day 2025
I never wanted a Guinness more than the moment when I reached the bottom. ~~ Paul Egan. Upon finishing his climb of Croagh Patrick. [Paraphrased] Once upon a time, when I was a young boy, my father gave me a ‘beaver stick’. For my readers who have never had or seen a beaver stick, it…
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the woman who birthed me
[My mother, Mary Hotchko Egan. She is striking a very ’50s pose in our backyard in Owego, NY. Photo is mine.] “Don’t toss that saucer in the air. You’ll drop it.” ~~My mother to me, sometime in the late ’60s. Of course I wouldn’t listen. I tossed it up and caught it, until I missed.…
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Peter, Lenny & pat’s big adventure
[The route. The dark blue line. Disregard the time notation. Source: Google Maps.] “I remember it was up hill all the way.” ~~ Lenny Schmidt “There is a cow outside of our tent.” ~~ Patrick Egan Oh, the exuberance of youth! The innocence of the young! The pure and wild wind in our hair and…
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To keep you from being homesick
[The found photograph. By unknown photographer, probably my father.] The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect, and as for that object, it depends upon chance whether we come upon it…
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Below the equator VIII: Across the Rio de la plata and onto Montevideo
[The Salvo Palace on Independence Square. Now an office building and apartment complex it was for a time the tallest building in Uruguay. I never saw anyone on the upper terraces; maybe not for tourists? Photo is mine] Montevideo n. (Portuguese) I Saw A Mountain. ~~Result of my Chrome search. The Journey and The Arrival~…
