for Mary Heaney
1. Sunlight
There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed
in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall
of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the backboard,
the reddening stove
sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.
Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails
and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.
And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.
I have loved this Seamus Heaney poem for a long time: its portrays an everydayness yet is evocative of warmth, home, and hidden daily rituals of love. Mary Heaney, whom the poem is dedicated to, was Seamus's aunt who lived with his family.
At the New Yorker festival, Heaney gives a minute or two of introduction to the poem at 19:42, and the poem starts at 21:58. It's worth listening to any of his poems read in his own voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HWurkQ1ao4&list=PLHFpn5CtGS959SiwZad59seGiV52dOlBG&index=2
Afterwards, the interviewer Paul Muldoon reflects on the tension present in the poem regarding the tick of 2 clocks, and attributes it to the tension born by two adult females in the household. Heaney says, somewhat jokingly, that is a revelation; however, the viewer gets the sense that this interpretation may indeed be something he has not considered.
I think a wonder of art--poetric or visual--is its ability to bear multiple interpretations; and that indeed there exist possibilities of deeper, truer meanings than the creator even intended.
Einstein: "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science."
Iris Murdoch: "There is much more symbolism in ordinary life than some critics seem to realize."
Ray Bradbury: "...I never consciously place symbolism in my writing. That would be a self-conscious exercise and self-consciousness is defeating to the creative act. Better to let the subconscious do the work for you, and get out of the way. The best symbolism is always unsuspected and natural."
