it is not so much a matter of attaching oneself to a living symbol of being rooted
in the native ground; it was more a matter of preparing to be unrooted, to be
spirited away into some transparent, yet indigenous afterlife. The new place
was all idea, if you like; it was generated out of my experience of the old place
but it was not a topographical location. It was and remains an imagined realm,
even if it can be located at an earthly spot, a placeless heaven rather than a
heavenly place.^58The phrase, ëtransparent yet indigenous afterlifeí betrays the con-
tradictions in Heaneyís poetic philosophy, and indicates the way in
which he is torn between an indigenous rootedness and the ëafterlifeí
or transparency of a ëplaceless heavení.
Heaneyís poem ëThe First Flightí (1984) tests the force of
gravity as Sweeney prefers to strip away stringencies: ëto fend off the
onslaught of winds/ I would welcome and climb/ at the top of my
bent.í Sweeney who might be tempted to ëhold on toí ëThe Old Iconsí
(1984) also masters the air.^59 Heaneyís bog poems and Corkeryís
notion of Irish consciousness as a quaking sod, where stability
underfoot is uncertain, take on further dimensions: the island of
Ireland, linguistic structures of representation and claims for a firmly
anchored poetic self, end-up being constantly infiltrated by waves of
alterity. Although identity may be articulated through language, it is
less convincing to imagine that this linguistic model of crossing
boundaries can be used to change a sectarian context where frontier
lines are heavily marked and policed. In Heaneyís work there is a
tension between lived politics, philosophies of language and writing
which provides a context for political change. Heaneyís poems follow
the momentum of the bubble of a spirit-level as they oscillate between
gravitational pull, the airy and the need for balance between opposing
extremes.
58 Heaney, ëThe Placeless Heaven: Another Look at Kavanaghí, The Government
of the Tongue (London: Faber, 1988), p.4.
59 Heaney, ëThe Old Iconsí, Station Island, p.117.