I just went downstairs again, and stood by tthe back door. the air now seems clear and fresh. I seldom go in to the garden, or any province of my father much, and so I lack knowledge of it. What I said earlier here was thus unfounded – for the most part. looking from tthe back door into the garden, I remembered the times dad had taken me there, onto the lawn, into fresh air. anger vaniishes like dawn mists, and I thought of Heaney’s poem: [quote=”Seamus Heaney”]DIGGING

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests: snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.[/quote]