(Was: This week in pointless trivia) NP but Heaney

[Fiona Shnapple]

The double Vision of Heaney here in Terminus.



Seamus Heaney - Terminus *I*

When I hoked there, I would find
An acorn and a rusted bolt.

If I lifted my eyes, a factory chimney
And a dormant mountain.

If I listened, an engine shunting
And a trotting horse.

Is it any wonder when I thought
I would have second thoughts?


*II*

When they spoke of the prudent squirrel’s hoard
It shone like gifts at a nativity.

When they spoke of the mammon of iniquity
The coins in my pocket reddened like stove-lids.

I was the march drain and the march drain’s banks
Suffering the limit of each claim.


*III*

Two buckets were easier carried than one.
I grew up in between.

My left hand placed the standard iron weight.
My right tilted a last grain in the balance.

Baronies, parishes met where I was born.
When I stood on the central stepping stone

I was the last earl on horseback in midstream
Still parleying, in earshot of his peers.


On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 9:40 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:

> May I give you a poem, to read something worth while (here) for a change:
>
>
> MOTHER
>
> As I work at the pump, the wind heavy
> With spits of rain is fraying
> The rope of water I'm pumping.
> It pays itself out like an afterbirth
> At each gulp of the plunger.
>
> I am tired of the feeding of stock.
> Each evening I labour this handle
> Half an hour at a time, the cows
> Guzzling at bowls in the byre.
> Before I have topped up the level
> They lower it down.
>
> They've trailed in again by the readymade gate
> He stuck in the fence: a jingling bedhead
> Wired up between posts. It's on its last legs.
> It does not jingle for joy any more.
>
> I am tired of walking about with this plunger
> Inside me. God, he plays like a young calf
> Gone wild on a rope.
> Lying or standing won't settle these capers,
> This gulp in my well.
>
> O when I am a gate for myself
> Let such wind fray my waters
> As scarfs my skirt through my thighs,
> Stuffs air down my throat.
>
> (with special attention to the last 4 lines)
>
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