Heather Miranda: The Isle of Innisfree

I wish I had actually been able to stand upon the lake isle of Innisfree.

Because our day only allowed for about an hour in the area, we only got to look across at the island and watch the waves and a few boats paddle by. It’s funny because that’s probably how Yeats felt too--all those miles away in London as he wrote his poem. As much as he could see it in his mind or remember its smell, he couldn’t touch it. The dream stood, like Gatsby’s dream, green and across the lake and made better in idealization than reality could ever construct. I think that’s how anything just out of reach tends to be--highly idealized as it tantalizes us with its closeness. And this makes me wonder how God sees our capacity for dreaming unrealistic treasures into existence. It is solely a good, creative capacity? Or would it be more accurate to dub it a silly, human affectation?

       In our pilgrimage reflections, we are encouraged to ask ourselves how places or experiences pertain to loving things or people or places well. So how does Innisfree teach me to love the world well? Honestly I think we need to go out onto the lake and stand upon the isle. Or we need to drive around the sound and look Daisy in the eye. There's no better way to shatter your illusions than to see for yourself the fraud you've created. And maybe it's better not to dwell on Innisfree when you're in London, because it's right to love London while you're there. It's not good to dwell always on where you are not or the person with whom you aren't spending your time. We mustn't always soak in the nostalgia of either the past or of the future. So being present and content in any one season of life is one way I'm personally learning to love well this one wild and precious life of mine.

In the end, Yeats is not at fault for his poem, but I want the desire and the action to go and to do. There's certainly something out there, across the lake. But as Eliot says: do not ask, "what is it?" Let us go and make our visit.