Irish poet Seamus Heaney made a previous appearance on this page more than five years ago with his poem, “Doubletake” So here we will engage in our own doubletake of enjoying another of Heaney’s gems, this one from a series of eight 14-line sonnets that he dedicated to his mother under the heading, “Clearances.” The series appeared in his 1998 collection, “Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996.” Since the sonnets are all printed consecutively, they have no separate title, and are known only by their number and first line. Thus the odd-looking headline atop this post and the poem below, with only…
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Attending a memorial service yesterday for a longtime friend of Mary’s gone too young, I beheld at the subsequent wake in a spacious social hall a looping video of still images from Peter’s life, scores of them showing endearing portraits of him paired sometimes individually with his son or daughter, other times with both of them, still others with his wife and children as a family unit. All of the photos collectively, in the spirit of this cold gray December day dedicated to honoring one man’s life, exuding the sweep, the presence, the intrinsic and undeniable power, the wide magisterial…
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Sometimes, as the weekdays click by like a train churning thunka thunka purposeful yet deceptive, the sum of its sheer doggedness depositing me with unexpected speed on yet another Friday with no coalescence, no particular object of attention bobbing to the top from the background sea of ideas for this page, I yield to the steadfast gravitational pull of those near-and-always-dear, almost interchangeable twins: poetry (with its inherent music), or music (yep, with its poetry). No matter that the world seems going to ruin (hasn’t it always been so?), its cruel tempests both natural and human descending with oppressive regularity…
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Another binary in the long list of “two kinds of people in the world”: spring people and fall people. Sure, you can (and should!) love them both, or even make a case for summer beaching or winter snowing as your particular cup of preferred tea. But there’s a serious question to explore, I think, down there at the literal roots of the natural world: Do you identify more with those roots propulsing out new leaves in the bright glory of spring, or accepting those leaves back to earth as future mulch in the diminishing, slanted light of autumn? Personally, while…
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Is there anything more forlorn than a long unused passport, still brimming with hope of adventure for its bearer, though its pages remain unstamped, the whole of it the very epitome of unrealized potential and unfulfilled dreams? So it was for my passport, it having sat idly in a dark closet throughout the nearly seven years since I last renewed it. Mocking, no, make that pleading with me regarding its mint condition, it was languishing in danger of expiration without ever having come under the squinty gaze and worn thumb of an inquiring border agent asking about my intentions in…