As the the departure time for our UK/Ireland trip drew near, I began considering what poetry I would pack and haul along with me. First and foremost was to be a collection of Seamus Heaney, the Nobel prize winning Irish poet who passed away just a few months ago.
I don’t know anything about Heaney, so I placed a copy of a recent title of his in my Amazon.com basket -- and never quite got around to ordering it early enough to pack. Fair enough, thought I. Dublin will a fine place to pick up a copy of Haney. Sure enough, the Hughes & Hughes Bookseller store just off St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin had plenty of Heaney titles, and along with a birding guide of Europe, my stack of traveling books got two texts heavier.
I eventually opened Heaney’s New Selected Poems 1966-1987 on day two here at Holy Hill Hermitage in Co. Sligo. I must say, much of what he writes about has such an Irish flavor that I feel I need a primer on local history to follow his threads of thought.
Still, the concept of father grabbed me with the first poem I read. A few lines from ‘Digging’:
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into the gravely ground:
My father, digging, I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging...
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man...
And, of course, such a remembrance of Heaney’s made me consider my old man.
I think about Dad often, but especially on this trip. Having spent a few years of his young life in England in the US Army Air Corps during World War II, he told us a few stories of that dangerous time that have stuck with me. Like when the ship on which he and hundreds of his comrades crossed the Atlantic sailed into the Firth of Clyde in Scotland after a week of radio silence to avoid enemy detection. Story goes that Allied air support would survey the ocean for approaching ships. One such recon sortie spotted a quantity of flotsam on the water and making a reasoned judgement, assumed the Aquitania, my father’s ship, had been sunk by a German U-boat. All were surprised and delighted to find everyone intact.
Dad’s place of duty was Bury St. Edmunds, England, where he worked in the kitchen cooking for crews of airmen who flew over Europe on bombing missions. One of his most poignant stories was that guys flying out would leave their wallets behind, knowing that if they didn’t come back, whatever cash was in those wallets would buy a few rounds of drinks for the guys that did. Even late in his life Dad couldn’t listen to taps without choking up with tears. I witnessed that more than once.
Back when I was a kid, like my other brothers, I’d help him on occasional jobs when he installed floor covering on weekends and in the evenings to raise a little extra money for the family. He did the same gig for Rike’s, a local department store, full time. Later on in his career he went out on his own to ‘lay’ carpet and linoleum. One summer I worked with him and honest to goodness, I’ve never seen a man sweat so much. Imagine one guy -- with a little help from me -- jockeying a 400 pound roll of carpet, getting it into position, cutting it perfectly, then kicking the edges into the tack strip to make the installation secure. Heavens. He made it clear, by the way, that none of his sons would follow in his career footsteps. We were all going to school.
I remember, too, plenty of Sunday mornings in my late teens when he would get me up early so we could make it to church on time to serve as acolytes for the 5:45 AM service at church. It didn’t matter what time I had gotten in the night before. We made it to church and performed our duties. It was about then, too, when he would take me out driving after church when the streets were pretty empty. Such was a special time for both of us.
And then last week when Cindy Lou and I were in London walking along the Thames over by Westminster Abbey, I found myself in tears. We had happened upon the Battle of Britain memorial. Oh, my. The airmen in the monument stood out in proud relief. I could see my father among them. I didn’t expect the tears, but there they were. Pride in my father’s contributions in that war effort was rich and heartfelt.
Seamus Heaney writes of his father’s influence on him, even from the grave. I feel some of that, too, I suppose. For me, though, I’d have to say I felt it most authentically a while ago this evening when I went out into the dark for a slow amble down the little two-lane road in front of our hermitage. The moon was full, the air still, and the murmur of the Ardnaglass River carried through the trees. Took me back to one of the nights Dad had us kids out for an all-night fishing adventure.
Because of him, I’ve concluded, I love Nature as much as I do -- so much so that I’d travel across the sea for the chance to have a quiet week where I can listen for birds; photograph flowers; enjoy an amazing sunrise -- and warm, Irish rain; and drive up into the Ox Mountains just to get the best panorama of the countryside possible.
He was one of the best Nature lovers I’ve ever known. Thanks for showing me the way, Dad.
Today’s elder idea: Might be a computer for me, but you get the idea: the finishing lines from Seamus Heaney’s ‘Digging’:
...I’ve no spade to follow men like that.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with that.
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