Walking Past The Collection

I had a window of an hour or so this evening, so I drove downtown, not expecting to find very much to photograph. The thought of this week's assignment was playing in my mind. Funny how it prompts different associations. I slowed when I saw a fresh, wooden hoarding on Leeson Street (I love those raw panels with their rich swirls, like veneer), but might not have pulled up if it weren't for that word POST, which rang the 'collection' bell. So I dutifully got out of the car with my camera, and got soaked by others racing through puddles.

I took the next left and drove along the canal, thinking I might see an armada of swans or two. Then I thought of the place where all our collections come to roost, the collection to end all collections. There was a beautiful one not far away, in Harolds Cross: Mount St Jerome Cemetary, full of Victorian Gothic angels, stone urns etc. Perfect weather for it, bone-damp, marbled in anemic clouds.

The place was closed of course, guarded by a seriously high wall. But I was arrested by the way the tops of certain graves loomed over the parapet, the tips of an earthberg.