Been thinking about poems a lot in the last couple of days. Not sure why. It's probably because I've heard a few on the radio in connection with Remembrance Sunday and World War One, such as this poem by Wilfred Owen, which I was reminded of on the Parlez-vous moo? blog.
I've had occasional forays into the world of poetry on Field Day before, with Raymond Carver (a great American outdoorsman), but another super country poet is Seamus Heaney. Here's an extract from his Keeping Going, which I particularly like:
My dear brother, you have good stamina.
You stay on where it happens. Your big tractor
Pulls up at the Diamond, you wave at people,
You shout and laugh about the revs, you keep
old roads open by driving on the new ones.
You called the piper's sporrans whitewash brushes
And then dressed up and marched us through the kitchen,
But you cannot make the dead walk or right wrong.
I see you at the end of your tether sometimes,
In the milking parlour, holding yourself up
Between two cows until your turn goes past,
Then coming to in the smell of dung again
And wondering, is this all? As it was
In the beginning, is now and shall be?
Then rubbing your eyes and seeing our old brush
Up on the byre door, and keeping going.
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