Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Distant Mountains


I'm doing a slow reading of Seamus Heaney's book Seeing Things.  That deceptively simple title phrase contains multiple meanings.  Then there's the oft-quoted ending to the poem "Fosterling":

Me waiting until I was nearly fifty
To credit marvels.  Like the tree-clock of tin cans
The tinkers made.  So long for air to brighten,
Time to be dazzled and the heart to lighten.

I read that the tin can clock was made to fool the devil, which would be a marvel indeed.

The accompanying 8x10 pastel is small, slight, and contains distant mountains.

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