My "place of clear water," the first hill in the world where springs washed into the shiny grass and darkened cobbles in the bed of the lane. Anahorish, soft gradient of consonant, vowel-meadow, after-image of lamps swung through the yards on winter evenings. With pails and barrows those mound-dwellers go waist-deep in mist to break the light ice at wells and dunghills. |
© 1987 Seamus Heaney