A Little Bit of Magic

Friday 30^th November 2012

Today I wait in a rather large queue at a busy shopping centre.  Already the Christmas rush has started.

The queue is at the gift voucher counter, and though most are probably getting in early with their Christmas shopping, the voucher I want is for a birthday present for my daughter.

I get fidgety,  a will I, won’t I internal dialogue starts, as to whether I should wait in the queue or move on,  until my attention is drawn to the man in front.  He is roughly mid to late sixties and he has a little toddler in his arms.  I’m assuming he is the grandad, though for all I know he could be the father, but somehow I sense it’s a grandfather, grandson relationship.

It is extremely boring standing waiting in a queue, but my time is made easier by my fascination with the interaction between the man and the little boy, who I would put roughly at two years of age.

The little fellow fiddles with Grandad’s ears rather playfully, and Granddad blows back affectionate kisses

It somehow fills my heart with hope and without a doubt, it makes queuing easier.  Before I know it, I’m now at the top of the queue and my business is done and I hold in my heart this little bit of magic that came to me today.

In keeping with today’s theme of the special bond between  grandparents and grandchildren, I’m posting below Seamus Heaney’s poem taken from his collection Human Chain.  It’s called, A Kite for Aibhín (after L’Aquilone’by Giovanni Pascoli 1855-1912) I’m told that this poem was added late to the collection in celebration of the birth of Heaney’s second grand-daughter Aibhín (Aye-veen) born to his son Michael and his wife Emer.

  The happiness of an event from the past is recalled in honour of the family’s new ‘high flyer.’

The poem incorporates the life giving element of, air, pale, blue heavenly.   It conveys the poet being brought back to another time when ‘All of us there trooped out/among the briar hedges and stripped thorn,’ and then there is that skilful comparison of the kite’s string breaking and separating, like the umbilical cord being cut at birth and like the kite taking off, itself alone, a windfall in that final line, so too the new and separate life of his Grand-daughter begins.

A Kite for Aibhín (after L’Aquilone’by Giovanni Pascoli , 1855 – 1912)

Air from another life and time and place,
Pale blue heavenly air is supporting
A white wing beating high against the breeze,

And yes, it is a kite! As when one afternoon
All of us there trooped out
Among the briar hedges and stripped thorn,

I take my stand again, halt opposite
Anahorish Hill to scan the blue,
Back in that field to launch our long-tailed comet.

And now it hovers, tugs, veers, dives askew,
Lifts itself, goes with the wind until
It rises to loud cheers from us below.

Rises, and my hand is like a spindle
Unspooling, the kite a thin-stemmed flower
Climbing and carrying, carrying farther, higher

The longing in the breast and planted feet
And gazing face and heart of the kite flier
Until string breaks and – separate, elate –

The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall.