FOLLOWER My father worked with a horse-plough, His shoulders globed like a full sail strung Between the shafts and fhe furrow. The horses strained at his clicking tongue. An expert. He would set the wing And fit the bright steel-pointed sock. The sod rolled over without breaking. At the headrig, with a single pluck Of reins, the sweating team turned round And back into the land. His eye Narrowed and angled at the ground, Mapping the furrow exactly. I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake, Fell sometimes on the polished sod; Sometimes he rode me on his back. Dipping and rising to his plod. I wanted to grow up and plough, To close one eye, stiffen my arm. All I ever did was follow In his broad shadow round the farm. I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, Yapping always. But foday It is my father who keeps stumbling Behind me, and will not go away. en Seamus Heaney, Death of a naturalist.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 22:31:21 +0000
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