My father worked with a horse-plough, <br />His shoulders globed like a full sail strung <br />Between the shafts and the furrow. <br />The horse strained at his clicking tongue. <br /> <br />An expert. He would set the wing <br />And fit the bright steel-pointed sock. <br />The sod rolled over without breaking. <br />At the headrig, with a single pluck <br /> <br />Of reins, the sweating team turned round <br />And back into the land. His eye <br />Narrowed and angled at the ground, <br />Mapping the furrow exactly. <br /> <br />I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake, <br />Fell sometimes on the polished sod; <br />Sometimes he rode me on his back <br />Dipping and rising to his plod. <br /> <br />I wanted to grow up and plough, <br />To close one eye, stiffen my arm. <br />All I ever did was follow <br />In his broad shadow round the farm. <br /> <br />I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, <br />Yapping always. But today <br />It is my father who keeps stumbling <br />Behind me, and will not go away.<br /><br />Seamus Heaney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/follower-2/
