“Anahorish” from Wintering Out
My ‘place of clear water’,
the first hill in the world
where springs washed into
the shiny grass
and darkened cobbles
in the bed of the lane.
Anahorish, soft gradient
of consonant, vowel-meadow,
after-image of lamps
swung through the yards
on winter evenings.
With pails and barrows
those mound-dwellers
go waist-deep in mist
to break the light ice
at wells and dunghills.
Heaney’s “Anahorish” reaches across natural history, drawing the reader back to spring’s past, as we enter a new one here in Edinburgh. Heaney’s writing does not skim the surface of the natural world; he rather draws us deeply into the land, memorialising and eternalising his native County Derry in these few simple stanzas.
“My “place of clear water”” opens the poem. Here, Heaney translates Gaelic into an Anglicized form of Gaelic etymology. Not appearing on Ordnance Survey maps anymore, Amahorish itself is now quasi-mythical. Heaney meditates on its memory, both personal and national, framing his roots deeply in the environment. The clarity of the water suggests a return to something elemental, a foundational place in his life. The freshness and vitality of the image conjures rich imaginings of purity and renewal. Soft syllables and enjambed lines flow through each other, back to Anahorish, echoing a river running, where “springs washed” and even the man-made settlements resemble the “bed” of a body of water.
Heaney immerses readers within Anahorish through the strong sonic quality of his verse, the synesthetic textures in the second stanza delicately layer sensory and figurative language, moving the reader through time and place. The “gradient” in turn refers to the sloping hills surrounding the settlement, and yet also the auditory quality of “Anahorish” itself, as the Gaelic is in harmony with the landscape.
The gentle clear spring of the opening lines is pulled back to the wintry world of Anahorish years before, where waters are frozen and the harshness and grit of the earth is revealed. The evening is full of darkened shadows, yet the lamps suggest warmth and homeliness within the coldness of the natural world.
Heaney’s “mound-dwellers,” introduced in the final stanza, link his natural world to a sense of Irish identity, laid out centuries before. Their description as such integrates them so completely to the natural world, as does their positioning “waist-deep in mist.” Here they appear totally at one with the world around them. The harshness of rural life is not idealised, their arduous daily existences not erased, but the persistence of tradition within the natural world is beautiful, a powerful image increasingly alien to the contemporary world.
The memory of Anahorish seems to be a bedrock of Heaney’s exploration of self, the vivid immersion into a world now intangible, yet brought to us through his verse in exploration of memory and identity.
Seamus Heaney’s death in 2013 brought widespread sadness, his literary legacy is incredibly strong: the craft of his poetry and his explorations of Ireland’s world speak to another time, a respect of and resonance with nature increasingly vanishing today. Reconnecting with Heaney, and poets like him, allows us to recognise the interconnection of nature, history and identity. The literary preservation of traditional rural life should be utilised against the increasing irresponsibility with which the environment is today being denigrated.
Heaney’s “Anahorish” speaks through time, and we must listen to it.
Photo by Robert Haverly on Unsplash
