used to cut turf He describes his father proudly By God the old man could handle a spade It means his father was very skilled with a spade He sees both men as hardworking strong and skilled The poet feels proud of them but realizes he cannot follow their path because he is a writer He says he has a squat pen between his thumb and finger and he will dig with it The squat pen I ll dig with it It means he will continue the tradition of his family s honest work but through writing instead of farming Loss of Beauty and Joy Heaney uses nature to show how beauty and happiness fade with time In Blackberry-Picking he describes a child s excitement at picking ripe blackberries The berries are beautiful and sweet The child is so happy and he wants to pick more When the children bring the berries home their happiness ends The berries start to rot The child feels like crying because the joy he felt has quickly disappeared He says It wasn t fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot So the poet shows the truth that nothing beautiful or joyful can last forever Loss of Childhood Innocence In Death of a Naturalist Heaney shows how a child s innocent love for nature turns into fear As a boy he loved to collect frogspawn The smells and sounds of the flax-dam filled him with wonder As he grows up instead of enjoying the natural world with innocent curiosity he finds it threatening and disgusting The gross bellied frogs terrify him This change shows the loss of childhood innocence and the realization that nature also has a wild frightening side Voice for the Oppressed Heaney often speaks for the silent and the oppressed In Punishment Heaney describes the body of a young girl found in a bog in Ireland He imagines how the girl was hanged cruelly by her tribe for adultery He feels pity and says I can feel the tug of her neck Then the poet shows that this kind of unfair cruel punishment is still present He speaks for the Irish women who were unfairly punished for sleeping with the British soldiers during the Northern Ireland conflict He criticizes society for wearing a mask of civility But deep down people are misogynistic just like the ancient people Love and Marriage Heaney also writes tenderly about love In The Skunk he remembers his wife with love while he is far away in California He watches a skunk moving at night It reminds him of his wife s movements at home He compares her to the skunk intent and glamorous ordinary mysterious The poem shows that physical distance cannot break true love In fine Seamus Heaney s poetry is full of humanity and feeling Through simple stories of farmers children lovers and victims he speaks about deep truths work love loss guilt and hope Heaney became the true voice of Ireland s land and soul