Dear friends,
I — a foreigner to America — had promised you a Substack this weekend, forgetting that this week is a U.S. holiday when my colleagues will be off. So I’m not going to put them to the work of this.
More next week.
In the meantime, here is a picture of a lovely donkey, taken near a little café I’ve eaten at in Patmos. One day, when I had too much to do, I went there for a meal, met the donkey, and memorised Seamus Heaney’s poem “Postscript” over lunch:
"You are neither here nor there, / A hurry through which known and strange things pass"
When I had too much to do…. I memorized a poem. Perfect!
“...And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.”