Tomás Murray

Máire & Coco (Georgia, December 2007)

Máire & myself a hundred years ago now

My sister Máire came to visit us July 8th. My wife died while Máire was on a plane over the Atlantic. MáIre stayed w/ me for 5 days. Yesterday evening, around 7 Irish time, Máire died in tragic circumstances in Donegal. That’s all I’m going to say; it’s in the Irish papers now anyway. She was 54. 💔💔

(I had never read or heard of that until just now. Whatever its merits or flaws, that’s quite the cast.)

Dark skies, light rail, Dublin.

Our cat Kaiju, a brown striped cat.

Kaiju and I have some secrets. Like that sometimes I will give her a little extra food mid-morning and not tell her sister.

A chocolate brown Oriental cat called Hank stares at his human with a look of baleful intensity.

I would very much like to know what I have done wrong.

. . . and from ‘End of Summer’:

“Blue poured into summer blue,
A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,
The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew
That part of my life was over.

Already the iron door of the north
Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows
Order their populations forth,
And a cruel wind blows.”

. . . and from his ‘The Layers’:

“I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.”

. . . from his ‘Benediction’:

“Admit no trailing wind
Into your shuttered mind

To plume the lake of sleep
With dreams. If you must weep

God give you tears, but leave
You secrecy to grieve,

And islands for your pride,
And love to nest in your side.”

Stanley Kunitz

Today is Stanley Kunitz’s birthday.* He was a poet. And Poet Laureate.

(*Some sources have it as yesterday.)

“Whatever you choose to claim   
of me is always yours;
nothing is truly mine
except my name. I only
borrowed this dust.”

(And also:)

(And also:)

(And also:)

(My late wife visited her brother there some years back. They took an architecture boat tour—sorry, I don’t have the details—which she loved. Didn’t stop talking about it & she or her brother—probably him—took some amazing photos.)

(And also:)

(And also:)

(❤️)

Tanuki likes to nuzzle her best friend while she’s waiting for her dinner to be ready.

A curly-coated Golden Retriever sits in a South London cafe, looking at her owner with a face of delightful optimism.

#Nico When you decide to share your toasted sausage sandwich with your dog.