Field Work Response

I think that Seamus Heaney is comparing nature and his lover in this poem. I think it’s interesting how Heaney doesn’t specify who this woman is just as he doesn’t really specify the scene of the nature that he’s comparing the woman to. It all seems very mysterious and makes me curious to know more about who this woman is. The woman has a vaccination mark as he says “I could see the vaccination mark” (Heaney 44) this shows how the woman has flaws. I think he compares this woman to nature to state a point that this woman is as beautiful as the natural world itself and how even her natural flaws are beautiful to him as he says, “You are stained, stained to perfection” (Heaney 47). Then in part I when it says “the train that comes between us” (Heaney 44) I think that he’s talking about some sort of separation between the lovers, but then in the end the lovers are back together since there’s physical touch as Heaney says, “I press a leaf of the flowering currant on the back of your hand.” (Heaney 47).