Homecomings

Let us imagine that a poet who has returned from a lecture tour in the United States that he undertook on his own is facing the partner he left to cope with home and family alone. He presents himself as a housemartin returning from its long journey in early summer to reclaim its niche and its partner. He depicts her as the housemartin’s nest. I Heaney concentrates his eye-camera on the flight of the bird that becomes the focus of his own return to the nest. He barks out the first of his imperatives (fetch me the sandmartin). Here is a creature that flies alarmingly close to the watery surface (skimming) on a weaving flight path (veering) a mirror image […]