Seamus Heaney(b. 1939)
Fosterling
"That heavy greenness fostered by water
At school I loved one picture's heavy greenness—,
H o r i z o n s rigged with windmills' arms and sails.
The millhouses' still outlines. Their in-placeness
Still m o r e in p l a c e w h e n mirrored in canals
I can't r e m e m b e r not ever having k n o w n
T h e i m m a n e n t hydraulics of a land
Of glar and glit and floods atmud I oozing water
dailigone.dusk
My silting h o p e . My l o w l a n d s of the m i n d .
H e a v i n e s s of being. A n d poetry
Sluggish in the d o l d r u m s of w ha t h a p p e n s .
Me waiting until I w a s nearly fifty
To credit marvels. Like the tree-clock of tin c a n s
T h e tinkers m a d e . So l o n g for air to brighten,
T i m e to be dazzled and the heart to lighten.