Field Work

“Our moon was small and far, was a coin long gazed at brilliant on the Pequod’s mast across Atlantic and Pacific waters” (Heaney 45).

After we pointed out in the class that Heaney mentions many nature signs in his poems, I began to pay attention to them. In the poem Field Work, I can tell in every verse, he mentions some kind of nature, such as “…smell of the coal…, …big-eyed cattle…, ring-wormed chestnuts…, Atlantic and Pacific water…” (44, 45). In this poem, he talks about his wife; he is watching her in the garden or the field working and realizing how beautiful and perfect she is to him. He especially mentions her beauty and perfection in the fourth part. I interpreted the quote mentioned at the beginning of this blog as they might not be wealthy “…our moon is small…” (45) and the vision of wealth if any is far “…and far…” (45) but they still have a long future together, which Heaney compares to the boat Pequod that sailed across the Atlantic and Pacific ocean. As I was reading Heaney’s autobiography, he was born and grew up at a farm where his father focused on selling cattle but, later in life, his family moved from the farm. None of the sources mentioned Heaney had a farm with his wife. Therefore, he might be talking about his mother in this poem. Even though his family moved from the farm, they moved to a different rural areas; that is why Heaney mentions nature very often in his poems.

Hana