Seamus Heaney - 2 poems

Scaffolding (by Seamus Heaney)

“Masons, when they start upon a building,

Are careful to test out the scaffolding,

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,

Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done,

Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem t be

Old bridges breaking between you and me,

Never fear. We may let the scaffolding fall,

Confident that we have built our wall.”

Personal Helicon (by Seamus Heaney)

“As a child, they could not keep me from wall.

And old pump with buckets and windlasses.

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

Of waterweed, fungus and dark moss…

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.”