A Poem by Seamus Heaney set to a gallery of photos by Bill Hinson
I. – We marked the pitch: four jackets for four goalposts, That was all. The corners and the squares Were there like longitude and latitude Under the bumpy ground, to be Agreed about or disagreed about When the tie came. And then we picked the teams And crossed the line our called names drew between us. Youngsters shouting their heads off in a field As the light died and they kept on playing Because by then they were playing in their heads And the actual kicked ball came to them Like a dream heaviness, and their own hard Breathing in the dark and skids on grass Sounded like effort in another world… It was quick and constant, a game that never need Be played out. Some limit had been passed, There was fleetness, furtherance, untiredness In time that was extra, unforeseen and free. II. – You also loved lines pegged out in the garden, The spade nicking the first straight edge along The tight white string. Or string stretched perfectly To mark the outline of a house foundation, Pale timber battens set at right angles For every corner, each freshly sawn new board Spick and span in the oddly passive grass. Or the imaginary line straight down A field of grazing, to be ploughed open From the rod stuck in one headrig to the rod Stuck in the other. III. – All these things entered you As if they were both the door and what came through it. They marked the spot, marked time and held it open. A mower parted the bronze sea of corn. A windlass hauled the centre out of water. Two men with a cross-cut kept it swimming Into a felled beech backwards and forwards So that they seemed to row the steady earth.
Markings
by Seamus Heaney
I
We marked the pitch: four jackets for four goalposts,
That was all. The corners and the squares
Were there like longitude and latitude
Under the bumpy ground, to be
Agreed about or disagreed about
When the tie came. And then we picked the teams
And crossed the line our called names drew between us.
Youngsters shouting their heads off in a field
As the light died and they kept on playing
Because by then they were playing in their heads
And the actual kicked ball came to them
Like a dream heaviness, and their own hard
Breathing in the dark and skids on grass
Sounded like effort in another world…
It was quick and constant, a game that never need
Be played out. Some limit had been passed,
There was fleetness, furtherance, untiredness
In time that was extra, unforeseen and free.
II
You also loved lines pegged out in the garden,
The spade nicking the first straight edge along
The tight white string. Or string stretched perfectly
To mark the outline of a house foundation,
Pale timber battens set at right angles
For every corner, each freshly sawn new board
Spick and span in the oddly passive grass.
Or the imaginary line straight down
A field of grazing, to be ploughed open
From the rod stuck in one headrig to the rod
Stuck in the other.
III
All these things entered you
As if they were both the door and what came through it.
They marked the spot, marked time and held it open.
A mower parted the bronze sea of corn.
A windlass hauled the centre out of water.
Two men with a cross-cut kept it swimming
Into a felled beech backwards and forwards
So that they seemed to row the steady earth.
More by Seamus Heaney
Digging
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.