Digging

High Chaparral

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch

FROM THE FRONTIER OF WRITING
—Seamus Heaney

The tightness and the nilness round that space 


when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect 


its make and number and, as one bends his face 

 



towards your window, you catch sight of more 


on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent 


down cradled guns that hold you under cover 



and everything is pure interrogation 


until a rifle motions and you move 


with guarded unconcerned acceleration— 



a little emptier, a little spent 


as always by that quiver in the self, 


subjugated, yes, and obedient. 



So you drive on to the frontier of writing 


where it happens again. The guns on tripods; 


the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating 



data about you, waiting for the squawk 


of clearance; the marksman training down 


out of the sun upon you like a hawk. 



And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed, 


as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall 


on the black current of a tarmac road 



past armor-plated vehicles, out between 


the posted soldiers flowing and receding 


like tree shadows into the polished windscreen. 

_________________________

BLACKBERRY PICKING
—Seamus Heaney

Late August, given heavy rain and sun


For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.


At first, just one, a glossy purple clot


Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.


You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet


Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it


Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for


Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger


Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots


Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.


Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills


We trekked and picked until the cans were full


Until the tinkling bottom had been covered


With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned


Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered


With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.


We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.


But when the bath was filled we found a fur,


A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.


The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush


The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.


I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair


That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.


Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

 A Beautiful Day For a Neighbor 

Would You Be Mine?

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

THE PERCH
—Seamus Heaney

Perch on their water perch hung in the clear Bann River


Near the clay bank in alder dapple and waver,



Perch they called ‘grunts’, little flood-slubs, runty and ready,


I saw and I see in the river’s glorified body



That is passable through, but they’re bluntly holding the 
pass,


Under the water-roof, over the bottom, adoze



On the current, against it, all muscle and slur


In the finland of perch, the fenland of alder, on air



That is water, on carpets of Bann stream, on hold


In the everything flows and steady go of the world.

 Cowboy, Cowgirl, Cowdogs, Cowcow

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

THE HARVEST BOW
—Seamus Heaney

As you plaited the harvest bow 


You implicated the mellowed silence in you 


In wheat that does not rust 


But brightens as it tightens twist by twist 


Into a knowable corona, 


A throwaway love-knot of straw. 



Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks 


And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks 


Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent 


Until your fingers moved somnambulant: 


I tell and finger it like braille, 


Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable, 



And if I spy into its golden loops 


I see us walk between the railway slopes 


Into an evening of long grass and midges, 


Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges, 


An auction notice on an outhouse wall— 


You with a harvest bow in your lapel, 



Me with the fishing rod, already homesick 


For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick 


Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes 


Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes 


Nothing: that original townland 


Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand. 



The end of art is peace 


Could be the motto of this frail device 


That I have pinned up on our deal dresser— 


Like a drawn snare 


Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn 


Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.

 Part-Time Angels

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

THE OTTER

—Seamus Heaney

When you plunged


The light of Tuscany wavered


And swung through the pool


From top to bottom.



I loved your wet head and smashing crawl,


Your fine swimmer's back and shoulders


Surfacing and surfacing again


This year and every year since.



I sat dry-throated on the warm stones.


You were beyond me.


The mellowed clarities, the grape-deep air


Thinned and disappointed.



Thank God for the slow loadening,


When I hold you now


We are close and deep

As the atmosphere on water.



My two hands are plumbed water.


You are my palpable, lithe


Otter of memory


In the pool of the moment,



Turning to swim on your back,


Each silent, thigh-shaking kick


Re-tilting the light,


Heaving the cool at your neck.



And suddenly you're out,


Back again, intent as ever,


Heavy and frisky in your freshened pelt,


Printing the stones.

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

DIGGING

—Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb


The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.



Under my window, a clean rasping sound


When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:


My father, digging. I look down



Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds


Bends low, comes up twenty years away


Stooping in rhythm through potato drills


Where he was digging.



The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft


Against the inside knee was levered firmly.


He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep


To scatter new potatoes that we picked,


Loving their cool hardness in our hands.



By God, the old man could handle a spade.


Just like his old man.



My grandfather cut more turf in a day


Than any other man on Toner's bog.


Once I carried him milk in a bottle


Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up


To drink it, then fell to right away


Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods


Over his shoulder, going down and down


For the good turf. Digging.



The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap


Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge


Through living roots awaken in my head.


But I've no spade to follow men like them.



Between my finger and my thumb


The squat pen rests.


I'll dig with it.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

SONG

—Seamus Heaney

A rowan like a lipsticked girl. 


Between the by-road and the main road 


Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance 


Stand off among the rushes. 



There are the mud-flowers of dialect 


And the immortelles of perfect pitch 


And that moment when the bird sings very close 


To the music of what happens.

______________________

—Medusa, thanking Robert Lee Haycock for his photo collection of the seasons at Black Diamond  Regional Preserve (click on them once to enlarge them), and reminding you to check out Medusa's Facebook page for Katy Brown's recent album of the Sacramento Voices reading at Sac. Poetry Center last weekend.

And Blogspot still hasn't fixed the problem with our green and blue boxes at the right; no edits are possible, so I can't update the calender. For area events, go to eskimopie.net, sacramentopoetrycenter.com, and other area calendars.

Dapple of My Eye

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock