JUST SITTING,
JUST WATCHING
Poem for Today - October 14, 2014 - Tuesday
FIELD OF VISION
I remember this
woman who sat for years
In a wheelchair,
looking straight ahead
Out the window at
sycamore trees unleafing
And leafing at the
far end of the lane.
Straight out past
the TV in the corner,
The stunted,
agitated hawthorne bush,
The same small
calves with their backs to wind and rain,
The same acre of
ragwort, the same mountain.
She was steadfast
as the big window itself,
Her brow as clear
as the chrome bits of the chair.
She never lamented once and she never
She never lamented once and she never
Carried a spare
ounce of emotional weight.
Face to face with her was an education
Of the sort you
got across a well-braced gate –
One of those lean,
clean, iron roadside ones
Between two
whitewashed pillars, where you could see
Deeper into the country than you expected
And discovered that the field behind the hedge
Grew more distinctly strange as you kept standing
Focused and drawn in by what barred the way.
© Seamus Heaney
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