Éist le fuaim na habhann agus gheobhaidh tú breac.

Listen to the sound of the river and you will get a trout.

Right now this one fits my jet-lagged, loopy brain to a tee. As an American, I read that adage and try to find the deep, nearly impenetrable meaning. Which is, of course, what it’s all about. If, rather than putting your fishing pole in the water, you’re foolish enough to listen to the sound of the river to get a trout, you may go hungry. Or, as Nike’s Madison Avenue friends would say in a far less poetic way, “Just Do It.” Guess it’s time to get out there and do it—but first let me just say this about the Irish language: not only is it necessary to translate the words, you have to understand these obscure idioms, all mixed up in strings of consonants and invisible vowels. Oy veh!

Having arrived in Ireland just two days after the 150th anniversary of W.B. Yeats’ birth, I’ll finish this post with a quote of his that always makes me smile: “Being Irish he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”