Poetree on a Thursday

I know I have been uber blogging lady today, but with me it’s either feast or famine.

Tallulah has just woken up with a gummy eye. Jason is steaming his head because his eyes are stuck shut and I have stomach cramps and suspiciously itchy eyes myself, despite spending the last forty eight hours being Mrs. hygiene lady.

It is at times like these when we must turn to the great poets.  Unfortunately, my choice today did not write a poem called: ‘Bloody, Bastard, Conjuctivitis,’ but he did write one about his mother dying (not of conjunctivitis), and it brings a tear to our sticky, collective eye.

This one is by Seamus Heaney and surprisingly contains no hint of bog, although the ubiquitous potato does make an appearance.  It is from a series of sonnets called Clearances.  And despite my jesting, it is rather gorgeous in a sad, snifflesome kind of way:

From Clearances:

 

III

 

 

When all the others were away at Mass

I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.

They broke the silence, let fall one by one

Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:

Cold comforts set between us, things to share

Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.

And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes

From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

 

So while the parish priest at her bedside

Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying

And some were responding and some crying

I remembered her head bent towards my head,

Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives-

Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

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