Sitting along a secluded little beach on the north end of Sherkin Island (off Baltimore, west Co. Cork—well worth a visit if you get the chance), I watched the tide lap its way gently in, slowly erasing the footprints I had left in the sand. It occurred to me that that’s often the case when you travel—what transitory mark you may leave on a place is worn away in time. I’ll refrain here from extrapolating to the existential level, but the point is that I’ll be leaving Sherkin Island in a few hours, and already my footprints there are fading.

The old wanderer’s feet bear the scars of a path travelled with no destination. Though his shirt is tattered, and his swollen knees have long since worn holes into the brown corduroy pants a passerby offered one…two years ago, anyone who dares to look can only notice his steeled eyes.