along the Canal Bank ...

Another glorious day here in Edinburgh ...

... my cycle-commute along the Union Canal was a real joy this morning.

Brought to my mind, one of Patrick Kavanagh's most famous poems:


Canal Bank Walk

Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal
Pouring redemption for me, that I do
The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,
Grow with nature again as before I grew.
The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third
Party to the couple kissing on an old seat,
And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word
Eloquently new and abandoned to its delirious beat.
O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web
Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,
Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib
To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech
For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.

---

Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)

---

Kavanagh wrote this poem whilst recovering from a life-threatening operation - he'd had a lung removed in 1954 - and he recuperated by walking along the banks of the Grand Canal in Dublin; where there is now a statue of him sitting on a canal-side bench ...

... for me, it's a wholly life-affirming verse, that resounds with the true worth of a simple life.