Η Επιστροφή - The Return (2011) - Part 2 – Αναχώρηση (Departure) Heaney Style

I found this poem by Seamus Heaney in the anthology I am reading. Entitled "Anahorish" - the English transliteration of the Greek word "Αναχώρηση" meaning "departure".

It strikes me as being very true to what I was trying to say in my previous post. . . departure is closely tied to memory.

For Heaney, as for me and for others, anahorish or departure, is a freedom or release. A permission to continue life, to progress, to refresh, to keep momentum, but without having to sacrifice or let go the cargo of memory.

Anahorish

My "place of clear water,"
the first hill in the world
where springs washed into
the shiny grass

and darkened cobbles
in the bed of the lane.
Anahorish, soft gradient
of consonant, vowel-meadow,

after-image of lamps
swung through the yards
on winter evenings.
With pails and barrows

those mound-dwellers
go waist-deep in mist
to break the light ice
at wells and dunghills.

Seamus Heaney, 1987

I love the phrase  My 'place of clear water' 

Departure is indeed a place of clear water.