Poem

Long gone are days of turf and mud,
green fields rising in mist and rain;
old cords were cut and never tied again,
but ours endures, a cord of blood.
We have squared the fairy ring
of mushrooms, magical and bathed in dew,
we’ve come full circle, me and you,
my changeling born in autumn and yours in spring.

Kim M. Russell, 19^th November 2019

My response to Thotpurge’s Poetry Tuesday #3: Borrowed

This Tuesday, Rajani has shared her poem, ‘Eden Unclaimed’, together with the poem by Vikram Seth that inspired it. The prompt today is ‘Borrowed’ and our challenge is to borrow some magic from poems that inspire us.

I love Seamus Heaney’s poetry and can always find one to fit my mood or a life event. On Friday it will be my daughter’s 39^th birthday. It’s strange to think that all those years ago I gave birth to her in Ireland, survived the hardships and pain, and now she has a child of her own and a new home. I’m going to visit them for a few days on Thursday. Heaney’s ‘Poem’ is a love poem for his wife, while my octet is for Ellen.

Poem
(for Marie)
 by Seamus Heaney

Love, I shall perfect for you the child
Who diligently potters in my brain
Digging with heavy spade till sods were piled
Or puddling through muck in a deep drain.

Yearly I would sow my yard-long garden.
I’d strip a layer of sods to build the wall
That was to exclude sow and pecking hen.
Yearly, admitting these, the sods would fall.

Or in the sucking clabber I would splash
Delightedly and dam the flowing drain,
But always my bastions of clay and mush
Would burst before the rising autumn rain.

Love, you shall perfect for me this child
Whose small imperfect limits would keep breaking:
Within new limits now, arrange the world
And square the circle: four walls and a ring.