poet

Seamus Heaney

/ Cliff / 1 Comment

A friend of mine, knowing I like poetry, gifted me a small book recovered from a garage sale the other day. The author is Seamus Heaney. I have never heard of him. The book is entitled North.

I prefer to NOT look up background on a poet before reading their work initially. I don’t want to be prejudiced one way or another by the accolades they have or haven’t received. I don’t want to know if they are obscure and unknown, or whether they have received high praise from academic circles. I guess I want to experience their work through my own lens before considering other people’s view.

I randomly opened the book and was immediately drawn in. I later told my friend that I don’t know immediately who to compare him to, other than Shakespeare. I’ll have to give in and look him up at some point. Meanwhile here is an opening stanza to one of his poems. I don’t understand or like the 2nd stanza, but I can’t get the first out of my head:

He courted her
With a decadent sweet art
Like the wind’s vowel
Blowing through the hazels:

If you want to read the 2nd stanza the poem is titled Aisling.

This stanza is completely light compared to the darkness, overall, of the rest of the pieces in the book, which seem to be describing the recovery of bodies dumped in a bog, in Ireland, presumably during the course of war.

I will take it all in, make my guesses toward understanding and then look up more about the book and author online.

To me it is an impressive piece of writing. What a great discovery from a garage sale! Wow.

I will probably transcribe one of the other pieces from the book and post it here at some point in the near future. (for the record)

Aimless Love by Billy Collins

/ Cliff / Leave a comment

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door—
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor—
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

Buy Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems