SKYLIGHT

21 Jul 2023 | Glory | 0 comments

You were the one for skylights. I opposed
Cutting into the seasoned tongue-and-groove
Of pitch pine. I liked it low and closed,
Its claustrophobic, nest-up-in-the-roof
Effect. I liked the snuff-dry feeling,
The perfect, trunk-lid fit of the old ceiling.
Under there, it was all hutch and hatch.
The blue slates kept the heat like midnight thatch.

But when the slates came off, extravagant
Sky entered and held surprise wide open.
For days I felt like an inhabitant
Of that house where the man sick of the palsy
Was lowered through the roof, had his sins forgiven,
Was healed, took up his bed and walked away.

Seamus Heaney (1939-2013), Glanmore Revisited 7.

Notes from the Compiler

Mark 2:4: 'They removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.' Seamus Heaney wrote: 'I used very much to like claustrophobic condition - facing the wall with a low-set ceiling. In the cottage we had this lovely old low ceiling and one of the things that Marie and I disagreed about was a skylight. She liked the idea and I said, 'No'.... I came back from Harvard one time and went upstairs in the cottage - there was a skylight! Actually, it was a tremendous change for me: again something to do with getting near fifty. I lifted up my eyes to the heavens.'

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