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Good friends we had, and good friends we've lost/Along the way
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The road to God knows where … Brendan O'Brien · Good friends we had and good friends we've lost/Along the way
The road to God knows where ... Brendan O'Brien 
Nice.
Something out of Charles Dickens. What an interesting picture! Like it is from the Victorian era. Did you plan it like that? It has a kind of timeless quality. Its very heartwarming. God, you must miss him terribly. Brendano can you give a little more detail about the circumstances – you inow this picture could be a lost Renoir! (Well it has a painterly quality and reminds me of a picture I know.)
A stunningly beautiful study of father and son.
Thank you so much, Cymbeline. In some ways he never changed … I can picture the same look on his face as a 19-year-old.
Thanks, RB. Hello, PG … Pauline found this today … she took it. It’s a strange one, but I don’t think it was meant to be!
The print was very dark; we scanned it and lightened it on the computer. Sean’s face is the brightest part (not by intention; that’s just how it was).
She thinks it was taken in Rostrevor, Co. Down.
Thank you for the kind words, as always.
Yes indeed, Sean’s face lit up and central in the picture – its a lovely composition. If I pulled the strings upstairs I’d get Sean to send it to you as a Christmas card!
🙂
A sweet, sweet boy. I love that pic. Could have been taken with a plate camera back in the 1920’s.
Hope you and the family are doing ok Brendan.I don’t often comment. Can’t keep on saying the same things, but the thought is always there.
Thanks, Jan. It’s nice to know that the thought is there … it does help.
We’re not doing too badly, thanks. Everything has been somewhat on hold lately due to the hazardous roads … we have fewer visitors than previously. But we’ll be seeing plenty of people over the Christmas period.
The study is very pastoral. I do not know what is around your shoulders, but I see the shepherd’s cape. The stick held by your son makes one think of the shepherd’s crook. The theme of the painting – for it seems to be a painting to me – is perhaps guidance through love.
For the Christian, there are strong Christian themes in the composition.
Thanks, Cymbeline … interesting interpretation. I’m probably wearing a so-called fleece (sheep/shepherd again!).
A so-called fleece? Shear madness.
🙂
Hello Brendan … Yes, it’s a wonderful moment captured.It’s a very special photo.
Timeless in its atmosphere and universal in its appeal .. a study in protective paternal love and the trusting love of childhood.
How lovely that you and Pauline have this memory of that day ..
Marya x
Thanks very much, Marya. Incidentally, I showed Pauline the lines from ‘Intimations of Immortality’ that you posted elsewhere … she has found them very comforting. Intimations of immortality are what we need at present.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
I’m delighted to know that Pauline finds comfort in those wonderful lines of Wordsworth . I remember studying his poetry at school and always enjoying such lessons .. and I think that if he had written nothing else but that stanza he would be remembered and revered.
It has come into my mind that one poem which I wrote some time ago might be of some solace to Pauline and to you … I hesitate to include it here in the great shadow of such a poet as Wordsworth but I remember that it appealed to Christine O.
Sleep, child, sleep
chrysalis,
in your warm cocoon
of night.
Wake, child, wake
moth-like.
Flutter to the moon
and catch the silver stars
of light.
Keep, child, keep
and memorise
the constellations
of your flight.
Make, child, make
a golden tune
of your earthbound
consolations.
Sing, child, sing,
of the silent sounds
of stars
and butterflies
when the day breaks
and the sun
has dried your wings.
Marya x
It’s really beautiful, Marya. I’ll show it to Pauline when she gets home. Thank you.
Thank you, Brendan .. I hope that Pauline likes it too.
Marya x
She likes it very much, Marya … she has asked me to thank you for posting it.
Good morning, Brendan and Pauline .. I am touched by your response to those lines .. the poem is titled, ‘Lullaby’.
Thank you very much for your kind appreciation of it.
Marya x
Thanks again, Marya. I hope you’re thawing out over there … this part of rural Ireland is green again, having been white for a couple of weeks.
Hello Brendan … yes,thankfully, it’s the same here. The temperature is now a positively balmy 5C.
I have even managed to wash my car at the local garage this morning .. everything was totally frozen and inoperable before. I can recognise it now .. 🙂
Did I mean inoperative ? 🙂
It was probably both. 🙂
Yes … rather like I am at those low temperatures 🙂
Are you familiar with Wordsworth’s poem ‘To H.C., six years old’? H.C. was Coleridge’s son.
I think that you may like some of the lines in that poem.
Marya, I have just read your latest poem. I loved it. ‘A gem that glitters’. Your poem brought sudden tears to my eyes.
I’ll look it up … thanks.
Hello Cymbeline .. I hope you and your family are all well.
Thank you very much for such a compliment.
Cymbeline, I have read the poem and I do like it. The ending is especially apt:
Thou art a Dew-drop, which, the morn brings forth,
Not doom’d to jostle with unkindly shocks;
Or to be trail’d along the soiling earth;
A Gem that glitters while it lives,
And no forewarning gives;
But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.
I would like to say how much I have just appreciated reading from these comments and the lovely verses contained therein. Thankyou Marya and Cymbeline, and you too Brendano for facilitating all this by sharing your remembrances and love of your son, Sean.
Thank you, PapaG … your contribution to this blog has been huge.