Down the Cove

 

Down the Cove

 We come back emptied,

to nourish and resist

the words of coming to rest:

birthplace, roofbeam, whitewash

flagstone, hearth...

                                             Seamus Heaney

                                             The Birthplace

 

I think maybe when Wyeth went out to row

from one ledge of the bowl of Broad Cove

to the other ledge, her edge, knowing the below

 

of him was the below of her and of the boat,

that only flowed, ever flowed and through flowing

the puff and blow of his breath was sowing

 

not rows and rows of the deftly hove

throats of open ground, hoping

no blight, no crows, no baren clod closed

 

after such a hopeful spring opening, but only

the great owing that wasn’t owning

but was, bless us, a stove lit with coal

 

and his dear friend holding the door open

with the toe of her old boot, the toll

of the years on the unstiffened deliberate roll

 

of the tongue unstrung poking to the grotto

of that stove glowing and her palms open

my friend, my dear, dear friend, welcome home.