Friday, January 19, 2007

Last-Minute Poetry Friday

Inspired by The Clutter Museum, I've decided to post one of my favourite poems. The author is Seamus Heaney, and the poem is from North (1975).

Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication

For Mary Heaney

I. Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.

doctor T 11:55 p.m.

2 Comments:

I have to say, Seeing Things is probably my favorite book of poems. Along with Elizabeth Bishop's Geography III. Oh, if only my college freshman-year poetry teacher could see me now... She'd be right impressed that I remembered two books we read in that class.

Take care, and keep kicking dissertation ass!
Blogger wind-up-bird, at 10:49 a.m.  
I've been tagged so I'm tagging you. If you want info, check out my blog.

Hope you don't mind. :-)
Blogger Ms.Smarties, at 9:01 a.m.  

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