A 48 hour delay for this week's poem because, quite simply, I forgot. More on this piece at the other end...
The smells of ordinariness
Were new on the night drive through France:
Rain and hay and woods on the air
Made warm draughts in the open car.
Signposts whitened relentlessly.
Montreuil, Abbéville, Beauvais
Were promised, promised, came and went,
Each place granting its name's fulfilment.
A combine groaning its way late
Bled seeds across its work-light.
A forest fire smouldered out.
One by one small cafés shut.
I thought of you continuously
A thousand miles south where Italy
Laid its loin to France on the darkened sphere.
Your ordinariness was renewed there.
So, Heaney is one of our nation's most beloved poets. And by "beloved" I mean "bought" -- apparently sales of his books account for two-thirds of all poetry sales in the UK. And yet I've never really read him 'til now.
And, to be honest, I still haven't -- only a slight dabbling. I should read more. Anyway, this is the one I most liked from my dabbles.
It can be found in New Selected Poems 1966-1987, but is originally from Door into the Dark, first published in 1969. I suspect it's also in Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996, a newer selection designed to replace New Selected Poems -- so why our course directors still have us buying the older collection I don't know.
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