They tell me: A.E.,
painting some trees across a
river, crossed it to
study the way sunlight looked
on the leaves' green surfaces.
Kyakuchuu
aka
Starward
[*/+/^]
Author's Notes/Comments:
A.E. was the pen name, one could even say the spiritual name, of the great Irish Poet, George Russell (1867-1935), who is also described in the Ninth chapter or episode of James Joyce's watershed novel, Ulysses. As well as being an excellent Poet, A.E. was an amateur painter---whose paintings now bring some high sums at sales, He sometimes visited certain landscapes in order to paint them; and this anecdote was told of him by one of his acquaintances (although I cannot now locate the reference to make a proper citation).
A.E. was the first poet and second literary figure of whom I became aware (Mary Shelley being the first), through a small paragraph in the "A" volume of Funk And Wagnalls Encylopedia---a copy of which I had found in the home of my recently deceased maternal grandmother in 1965. A.E. was the first Poet who preferred a pen name to his mundane given name; an example that has been highly influential in my own life.
