The presence of the past in the now
Earthy Birth
When mirror-looking, who shall I see? Will my mirroring-self reflect dust-free?
Of what did I dream when,
like Irish poet Seamus Heaney,
who looked down a well,
I looked into a puddle?
…
He concluded;
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.
…
Did I lay down
in imagination
in that leafy reflection
the roots of future traits?
…
Was the leaf I held
the synapse to
future ways of being?
…
In a moment, and another and another
the child is mother of the girl
or father of the man.
…
As imperfect human
our mirror
reflects the dust
and rust
of
a unique
life-journey.
…
Sometimes we radiate reflecting the good.
Sometimes our shadow-gloom
allows little light.
So be it.
…
I continue to reflect….
I never tire of reflecting on this wonder-full statement by Seamus Heaney;
“I began to write poetry in 1963, craft-ridden,
but compulsively attracted to those guardians of technique like
the water-diviner and the
untutored musician,
(wo)men whose wrists and fingers
receive and uncode
energies
into meanings.
To learn their ease and grace
in the half-way station between t
he cellars of self and the
courtyards of the world around them
has been and will be
my study so long as I continue to write.”
Seamus Heaney p101 Corgi Modern Poets in Focus No 2 Ed Jeremy Robson 1971
…
Seamus Heaney’s poem Personal Helicon;
Read more about shadow psychology here;
