a mother’s day dance

10 Saturday May 2014

Posted by Editor in Act Two, Castledawson, Family, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Mother's Day, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Ordinary Things, Poetry, Rites of passage, Rituals, Seamus Heaney

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

beach memory, Castledawson, Clearances, County Derry, folding sheets, happy mother's day, ironing, Mother's Day, Seamus Heaney, The Haw Lantern, Themes of childhood

This Mother’s Day weekend in America finds me thinking about my mother back in Castledawson, County Derry, a great armful of sheets rescued from the clothes-line before the rain begins to fall. Then, the folding, a precise ritual, my father her partner in a dance handed down from one generation to the next.

My daughter learned those same moves not by the ironing board in my mother’s kitchen, but on the sandy edges of California before the fog rolled in on an August evening.

Facing each other, a blue blanket stretched between us, she stepped towards me, intent on matching her corners to mine, my edge to hers. In the middle we met to make the final fold, while unbeknownst to us, her father took our pictures and wrote our names in the sand, knowing the tide would wash them away. Forever.

And still we dance.

From Clearances V by Seamus Heaney

In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984I

“The cool that came off the sheets just off the line
Made me think the damp must still be in them
But when I took my corners of the linen
And pulled against her, first straight down the hem
And then diagonally, then flapped and shook
The fabric like a sail in a cross-wind,
They made a dried-out undulating thwack.
So we’d stretch and fold and end up hand to hand
For a split second as if nothing had happened
For nothing had that had not always happened
Beforehand, day by day, just touch and go,
Coming close again by holding back
In moves where I was x and she was o
Inscribed in sheets she’d sewn from ripped-out flour sacks.”

Listen here as Seamus Heaney reads the poem.

doing a dance for seamus heaney

03 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by Editor in Anahorish, California, Castledawson, grandmother, Memoir, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Ordinary Things, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Seamus Heaney, Themes of Childhood

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

beach memory, Castledawson, Clearances, County Derry, folding sheets, ironing, Mother's Day, Seamus Heaney, The Haw Lantern, Themes of childhood

Ironing shirts, folding sheets, the mundane tasks that Seamus Heaney transformed into magical spots of time that make me think of my mother back in Castledawson, County Derry a great armful of sheets rescued from the clothes-line before the rain begins to fall. Then, the folding, a precise ritual, my father her partner in a dance handed down from one generation to the next. And I’ll hear Seamus Heaney remembering his own mother. My daughter learned those same moves not by the ironing board in my mother’s kitchen, but before the fog rolled in on the end of a windy afternoon on the sandy edges of California. Folding a blue beach blanket, edge to edge, while unbeknownst to us, my husband took photographs and wrote our names in the sand . . .

From Clearances V by Seamus Heaney

In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984

Listen here as Seamus Heaney reads the poem.

seamus heaney & a dance for mother’s day

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by Editor in Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Mother's Day, Ordinary Things, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Themes of Childhood

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

beach memory, Castledawson, Clearances, County Derry, folding sheets, happy mother's day, ironing, Mother's Day, Seamus Heaney, The Haw Lantern, Themes of childhood

This Mother’s Day in America finds me thinking about my mother back in Castledawson, County Derry, a great armful of sheets rescued from the clothes-line before the rain begins to fall. Then, the folding, a precise ritual, my father her partner in a dance handed down from one generation to the next. My daughter learned those same moves not by the ironing board in my mother’s kitchen, but before the fog rolled in on the end of a windy afternoon on the sandy edges of California. Folding our beach blanket, edge to edge, while unbeknownst to us, my husband took photographs and wrote our names in the sand . . .