BOOKS
145
Basket of Chestnuts"). Touch, once a characteristic response and imagi–
native gesture of Heaney's, is now at cross-purposes with his endeavor; it
is "thwarted" by being out of its element. Now he savors "A farewell to
surefootedness, a pitch/ Beyond our usual hold upon ourselves"
("Squarings, xxxviii"). This is a poetry that is "against ... all emulation
of stone-cut verses" (Squarings, xxxviii") and self-consciously finds even
that formulation too self-conscious, too pumped-up. This is a purpose–
fully playful poetry that "lifts its eyes and clears its throat" ("The
Biretta") at its own imaginings, here an overturned clergyman's hat be–
coming a boat.
In
Seeillg Thirlj!s
these moments of transformation are mostly written
on water. Images of fishing, boating, streams, rivers, boats, and the sea
abound. Stonework (as opposed to "stone-cut verses") carved to repre–
sent flowing water - the element most mutable figured in the material
most obdurate - is praised for the transformation of its nature: "Lines/
Hard and thin and sinuous represent/ The flowing river ...
.I .. .I
And
yet in that utter visibility/ The stone's alive with what's invisible"
("Seeing Things"). Water, what's invisible, not earth, where things are
encoded and tactile, is the governing element and image of
Seeing
Things;
the imagination, its ability to re-invent reality, is its ruler.
The struggle between the imagination and the claims made upon it
by politics and religion has been one of Heaney's driving themes since
Wintering
0111,
when, in "Midnight," he wrote regarding Northern
Ireland, "The tongue's/ Leashed in my throat." But in the more recent
books,
Stalioll Island
especially, the quarrel has grown dramatically, as
Heaney has ventured toward an at first uneasy acceptance of his "free
state of image and allusion" ("Sandstone Keepsake").
Heaney's process of defining his role as a humane person, as a
Catholic, and as a poet, in the politically violent, religiously charged at–
mosphere of Northern Ireland has been arduous and wrenching. He has
written about it in the most personal of terms ("The Toome Road,"
"The Strand at Lough Beg," among other poems) and castigated himself
for his personal and poetic handling of the situation - especially for
evading it ("Punishment," "Singing School: 4. Summer 1969, 6.
Exposure," "Station Island vii") or handling it falsely (Station Island
viii").
In
section viii of "Station Island" Heaney has his cousin, for
whom "The Strand at Lough Beg" was written, lash into him for that
elegy:
'You confused evasion and artistic tact.
The Protestant who shot me through the head
I accuse directly, but indirectly, you
