1 of 3 Poems I have heard Len read beautifully | A. Hirsh

Poem

for Marie

Love, I shall perfect for you the child Who diligently potters in my brain Digging with heavy spade till sods were piled Or puddling through muck in a deep drain.

Yearly I would sow my yard-long garden. I'd strip a layer of sods to build the wall That was to keep out sow and pecking hen. Yearly, admitting these, the sods would fall.

Or in the sucking clabber I would splash Delightedly and dam the flowing drain But always my bastions of clay and mush Would burst before the rising autumn rain.

Love, you shall perfect for me this child Whose small imperfect limits would keep breaking: Within new limits now, arrange the world And square the circle: four walls and a ring.

—Seamus Heaney