The Skylight

I'm  not  normally a fan of the work of 

Seamus Heaney, 

but when I read this poem

it took my breath away.

He wrote it after a row with his wife, 

who wanted to put a skylight in his study.

( And we all know who sleeps under a skylight, don't we? :)

Once, 

I had grandiose ideas about poetry,

but now ~

I find my heart stripped bare of those.

It doesn't matter to me anymore about structure

or lines and stanzas.

I just loved these words for what they were.

Touching, 

heart wrenching, lull you to sleep words.

Thanks Seamus. 

For this one.

The Skylight

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.