Pinetree

Καὶ θυμᾶμαι τὸν ἥλιο ποὺ γελοῦσε

Πού γελοῦσε καὶ δάκρυζε θυμᾶμαι

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Pinetree, water colour

                           for Michael Longley

                           As a child, they could not keep me from wells

                           And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.

                           I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells

                           Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.

                           One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.

                           I savoured the rich crash when a bucket

                           Plummeted down at the end of a rope.

                           So deep you saw no reflection in it.

                            A shallow one under a dry stone ditch

                            Fructified like any aquarium.

                            When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch

                            A white face hovered over the bottom.

                            Others had echoes, gave back your own call

                            With a clean new music in it. And one

                            Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall

                            Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

                           Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,

                           To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring

                           Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme

                           To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

                          Seamus Heaney

                          Personal Helicon

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