Giggles of mock terror, laden with gasping excitement; a crescendo of pitch, draw my eyes from the swimming clouds. Blobs and streaks, wisps and blankets, all ignoring the sun, just like this child; peacefully amused with every smooth summer breath. For now, but in five minutes she’ll be overtired, a deadweight in her father’s arms, and lashing the walls with peeling screams and cries. And when she gathers her breath to look back she’ll become a reminiscing woman, smothering her moments with words and tears; real and metaphorical. The roof reaching smile; a dismissive grin or a coy pout, mark her caresses of this moment of sand, growing under scrutiny, to pebbles, boulders, moons, and back into an infinite beach, too windy to walk. So she bears her alabaster nape and looks again to this time, leaving the moment as it is. And so she’s nudged on in time by the gentle wind, joyfully dispersing pigeons. But can’t she give them a break? They’ve flown all the way from Dorset Street, and it seems in vain. Whatever they’ve heard was bullshit. Unless that’s a chip over there in the grass. They move in, waddling with unskilled steps, and attempted stealth. It’s only one chip, not for bloody sharing. No chance now. They’ve fled from her stomping legs. But it’s a cigarette filter anyway. And up goes a pigeon, bailing out from the crowds and stomping legs, and students; too poor to give food to these ugly birds.
But where’d the girl go? She ceased laughing and fell off my sonar.
Sunlight gushes into the yard with a flatulence of Irish air, and down whooshes a sparrow, lithe unlike the fat pigeons. It flies low like a ripple in liquid soil, and is joined from my side in an almost caress of feathers, and this one continues towards the library building. It’s going straight at the damn thing. And that’s hardly believable, it pulls up suddenly the bird is calmly atop a stone rivulet, domineering the window’s view. Subtle deep breaths hide the strain of flight such as that, which has now attracted a pigeon buddy, for this was a pigeon itself, but foolingly agile. And agilely it plunges from the ledge. An apparent mating pursuit in garish failure. He squats with fulsome indifference which fools no one, and she flaps about distractedly and beautifully, glides into an updraft and swirls around, around, and down, machine-gunning her shadow, into the same manoeuvre as before, but occupying a new location on the ledge, below and left. So, almost whistling with over-casualness, gazing everywhere but at her, he flaps down to the ledge, on the edge. He’s not there for her, oh no, that’s mere coincidence, so coincidental in fact, they must think alike, both acknowledging the unique advantages of the fine masonry. Compatible, that’s the word, why not simply F- too fast. Not subtle, and she’s gone again. What a bitch. I’m not looking anymore.
My eyes flip down and my glance falls onto a young woman in recline upon the slightest knoll. Pretty, but a glance will lie. The rarity of sun sporadically massages her limp and smooth face, while blonde hairs flail on the edges. Her neck pulsates with gulps of afternoon air. A slim body stretched by this angle, with breast tucked away, poorly, with pointing peaks. And she seems so relaxed, it must be relaxing otherwise why lie down? Arms folded on abdomen, and still, so still, soft and soundless.
“I can’t believe you are undermining the poetry of Yeats, by comparing him negatively with Swift, simply because Yeats didn’t attend this college and Swift did.”
“it’s not about undermining Yeats. I’m simply saying I understand Swift better because he lived as I live, and his world is relatable -”
“This is so trite but go on”
“Swift was simply better because this college gave him focus and formed the basis for his infamous wit.”
“Yes, I see how Oscar Wilde was lost without a degree from Trinity”
“okay, perhaps I’ll simply focus on the flaws of Yeats, which I was trying to avoid since you seem so sensitive.”
“I just don’t care to listen to a praise of Jonathan Swift as a poet, when it degrades Mr. Yeats. Swift was only a witty rhymer, simple rotating and repeating rhymes, he never mastered any forms or metres, not to mention vividness of words”
“What I mean to say is that Yeats seems over rated for simply nursing an unrequited love, and resenting his embroilment in a city he longed to escape for his carefree home of youth.”
“Yeats was a fuckin Romantic and Swift was a Satirist, you simply can’t compare them. It‘s like saying a steak is better food than a Caesar salad”
“It isn’t necessitatingly relevant in which genre of poetry they wrote. Yeats was more involved in this society than Swift was, he just couldn’t harness the powers of poetry like him.”
“Would you stop referring to poetry like it isn’t malleable. It’s not all about clever rhymes. And I think that involvement relates to the period, which was more restrictive for Swift.”
As I turn my gaze it smacks into some more grey, bobbing-necked birds, milling around, seeking out chips and finding only butts. One lies, feathers and fat folding upon the grass. I’ve never seen a pigeon recline before. It could almost have a book and a furrowed brow. But another set of stomping legs electrify it’s heart and they all scatter into the air. A boy this time, licking the ground with his smile as he bounds through the resting pigeons. What a thrill, forcing the dormant creatures into frenzied flight, bringing them to life; what power, and almost, almost catching them. Asleep, asleep. Alive, and arisen before his face, kicking wind, to be tasted with his flapping tongue. And one of his toys engages the ecstasy by returning. The boy charges, with stomping legs, the bird flutters up a few feet, free from the boy’s feet, then down slightly afar. The boy advances again with full force, and the bird is pinioned into a final retreat.
Hurrah for the champion of the yard.
Momentary joy, now there lie no more hordes to disperse.
But movement is stirred in the now upright woman. Actually, upright from the waist I should say. She rose to grab with delicate hands, rather indelicately, her handbag; her makeshift pillow, and yank from its chest, her phone. Of course a phone, leisure is a filler in between communication. Who wouldn’t have a phone to wait upon? Me.
A disenchanted gaze turns in search of peaceful pigeons but returns to examine the half upright features of the blonde creature. Unremarkable. Cursed false hopes of angle. Slinking down in sight I find a leaf nearby with mutated form. The trees hands stretch out for nourishment and this maverick has diverged in its tip, like a cartoon gun barrel after implosion. Two tips formed like wings which tried to fly in the thick wind, yet now lie flightless in my palm. Has the woman still the phone clutched in hers? No, she’s resumed her recline and silence. Still again, so still. Though now I can see she is not calmed, for her palm clutches the phone, like a death bouquet upon her abdomen.
The triumphant victor over the pigeons has a waning laugh, and is tiring. Into a waiting reposed position he slumps, while the birds scavenge afar. But food and rest drive the pigeons into eventual return to the abandoned defences of the grass. And so they plonk along, into his sights. A recurrent demonstration disperses the ambling birds, and the boy inflates into hyperactivity. He clears the yard. Then lunges his sight backwards, and about, and statically stomps where no pigeons rest, with piqued alertness, cackles and overdrawn breath. Until he’s carried back to barracks; his stroller, and reluctantly evacuated. Why? They’ll return, it’s not over. Look, see how they linger, with one eye distracted and beak upcast, but with ‘tother they plot their inevitable counterattack. They must be quashed again and again, with fear. Joyous fear.
I see his futility, but he still struggles with half his body, against the iron arms of his mother. Jerking legs toward the battlefield, foreboding of an escape, to be ready for the first wave of pigeons. Looking for food and rest.
“Oh, aren’t they just adorable, Henry?”
“No, they’re bloody not. Lord knows what diseases they carry. And they’re everywhere, such little pests. Everywhere I go I can’t escape them.”
“Oh why do you have to be so negative, you old grumble bum”
“I tell you, if there’s life on Mars it’ll be them buggers”
“Children? You really are mad”
“Heaven’s sake Mary I’m talking about the pigeons. You’re the mad one, dragging me to Trinity College just to wait in line to see a book in a glass case, after we spent all morning looking at a bunch of scrap metal in glass cases. What’s next? We go ogle a footbridge?”
“You were raving about wanting to go to the National Museum”
“Until I got there”
“Well it doesn’t matter anymore. As I was saying about the children, they’re so adorable chasing the birds, squealing and stomping as they come alive. It would make some lovely photos, we could use them as Christmas cards for our friends back in Birmingham”
“It’s a bloody ways off isn’t it?”
“Yes I suppose we’ll have lots more holiday photos in six months won’t we? Why, there’ll be the photos from Australia, and Singapore, and Alaska, and of course our magical trip to Babylon”
“Mmn”
“You have to think ahead. It really would be nice to get some shots with the child scattering pigeons in the foreground of the Old Library.”
“I’d prefer the cobbled courtyard, such grandeur of architecture. I suppose Trinity is a lovely place. ‘Cept for the blasted pigeons pooing everywhere”
Odd. How odd it would be to witness a warm and sun-painted day here, devoid of cameras with humans growing from them. The Campanile unawed, the cobblestones unsmoothed, and the library ungawked at. Impossible, weather permitting this is the beacon of learning in the beacon of wit and literature. Except for UCD.
But the woman, still reclined though with head arisen and sight fixated on her bouquet. She prods it for its blood, pouring out in coded messages, unrelayed or unreplied it seems, but the probing brow shows fortitude, and intensity increases until she collapses again into recline, massaging her bouquet still. I now prod, her silence, for a continuation. What next? Disappointment? Jerking bodily joy? What? She’s about to stir I feel.
She must.
Temporary silence and stillness only.
Stretched seconds perspire on our brows.
But this voyeurism of pain is perverted, and I shuffle my gaze away until it stumbles under a rushing student, or book enthusiast. She runs from the knee down, careful not to commit more, so as to precede a calamitous loss of grip, drawing amusement from the damn tourists. Wouldn’t that be a funny photo? She proceeds in short, spasmodic bursts of speed, then slows to regain composure and grip then continues, past the gathering storm of pigeons, throbbing and distorted by peripheral sight. Rounding another corner of the yard she’s almost beyond my sight and interest, when she finds luck in a slip of hands. I wish she’d drop them all so I could leap up from this tree trunk and run over to her aid. If those books and folders would wriggle out of her supple fingers, with violet nails loose at the sides. Please, halt your hurry, I wish to conquer your waving chestnut locks as I kiss you.
But she doesn’t give me cause to caress her presence. She merely renews her grip, and in doing so catches sight of a little boy unsteadily marching in her path, unaware. Her knee is halted and does not disfigure the boy’s bright face. And so she loses another clump of seconds to me and this pointless moment, as her geographical goal stretches beyond. The boy fell on his padded bum, and she must tend his presence until mother arrives. Once he’s carried off the field, the student, or book enthusiast, poorly feigns sympathy while whipping her watch with a glance and sliding away from me. Passing the line of flashes and poses, smudged and faded, wafting away with her tightly denimed legs.
I look back to the start for a recurrence and see a trickling effusion of students or book enthusiasts, eyes unremarkable and unfocused on the wonders of architecture swollen with apparent history. Merely glazed with conversation and peripheral pallets of rare colour. Or perhaps feigned enrapture, glazing depression, which is belied in the steps. A well worn trail ambled upon with nothing and nowhere to digress, moving from class to class or lunch to class etc. etc.
“For the love of God will you let it go! It doesn’t denote greatness to harbour love. I love my childhood holidays in Wicklow, which I believe to be far superior to Sligo, but I’m more concerned with using whatever beauty I can perceive within my mind, to perpetuate a culture of activity and intellectualism”
“This is simply ignorance and arrogance of personal taste. You’re trying to define art.”
“I’m stating why Swift, as a fellow Trinity student, is a superior poet than stuffy old Yeats”
“you haven’t given one viable example, you’re basing everything on conjuncture which proves you are opinion driven and biased for inexplicable reasons”
There is a calm quiet as the argument takes breath and neither can deny they speak with superficial conviction.
“I loved Emilie but I did something about it. What did Yeats do with his woman? Let her get married. At least I gave my whole heart to trying to win Emilie. I’ve no regrets to taint my soon to be brilliant works”
“Yeah you did Dave, yeah… you did. Artists feel the world others only live in, she just couldn’t feel you”
Ah, hidden motives, always propagate hideous conversation. The pigeons are back. Same motive as always, get food, and get that taunting ace, upon the ledge.
And avoid stomping legs.

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