On Sundays,
when the rain held off,
after lunch or later,
I would go with my twelve year old
daughter into town,
and put down the time
at junk sales, antique fairs.

There I would
lean over tables,
absorbed by
lace, wooden frames,
glass. My daughter stood
at the other end of the room,
her flame-coloured hair
obvious whenever—
which was not often—

I turned around.
I turned around.
She was gone.
Grown. No longer ready
to come with me, whenever
a dry Sunday
held out its promises
of small histories. Endings.

Spirit of irony,
my caustic author
of the past, of memory,—

and of its pain, which returns
hurts, stings—reproach me now,
remind me
that I was in those rooms,
with my child,
with my back turned to her,
searching—oh irony!—
for beautiful things.
~Eavan Boland from “The Necessity for Irony” in The Lost Land.

How is it we look past the golden treasure
right in front of us,
the beauty gifted generously to us,
to pursue the glittery with no value in the long run?

If my history of misplaced focus be forgiven,
it is only because of your own golden and generous grace –
ironically, always the most beautiful object of my searching.