Lot 91 Donald Teskey AN EVENING WALK IN MARYLAND, AFTER A POEM by GERARD SMYTH, 2005

Donald Teskey RHA, b. 1956
AN EVENING WALK IN MARYLAND, AFTER A POEM BY GERARD SMYTH, 2005
Oil on canvas, 18" x 21" (46 x 53cm)

Provenance: RHA, "Rhyme and Resin", auction held in aid of Poetry Ireland, 1 December 2005; Whytes, Important, Irish Art, Dublin, 26 November 2007, no 22; Private Collection.

An Evening Walk in Maryland

When my father was a tired old man,
his pride in the Republic gone,
every evening he went for a walk in Maryland,
stood by the canal or stopped
at the dry fountain in Jamess Street.

By way of crumbling lane and convent wall,
gothic spire and brewery chimney,
he ambled as far as his last glimpse of the Liffey
before it disappeared to appear again
at Islandbridge and Chapelizod.

When my father became a tired old man,
coping with the scarcity of divine help,
each night he emptied his pocket of its hoard
of coins and his betting docket for the horse
and jockey that tumbled in the final furlong.

Gerard Smyth
From The Mirror Tent, Dedalus Press, 2007