Mother of the Groom

A compassionate poem in which Heaney moves from decoding the thoughts and feelings of characters he knows less well in Wedding Day to a person he has known all his life. Mother of the Groom focuses on the poet’s own mother listening to the wedding breakfast speeches. He imagines her feelings as she sits silently through the proceedings. Heaney imagines that at this life-changing moment his mother is remembering him, first as a babe in arms, bath-water reflected on his glistening back then, once he has learnt to walk, as a kind of Baby Bear figure his small boots In the ring of boots at her feet. The hands that once held the child on her knee lie now in […]