Mossbawn Sunlight

1. Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.

-- Seamus Heaney [Liam O'Connor]

Back in the Day

Thanks to Michael, we have some historical poems to put up.

This haiku (in Heaney's writing, no less) was the second poem read at the first P&S, in 2000.

The first poem from the first Poetry & Stout was read by Joe Moore. Click here to read The Fiddler of Dooney if you missed it live.