Weighed In.
(after Seamus Heaney)
The 56lb weight. A solid metaphor
for all that needs to be
lifted, balanced, carried off
from the troubled door on the street
to the one at the end that some say
has hope as its knocker.
I hoped I could lift one, once
when I was a farmer-boy,
fourteen and full of bravado,
almost pulling elbows
from cartilage, spine
from pelvis, mind blown
clean out of the skull.
As a man I can carry two,
one in each hand, balanced
and strenuously hung from
squared-off shoulders.
I stagger them along that same street,
but still I can’t find that door.
They never let go, these
56lb, mind-crushing anchors.
8/11/26
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Author:
FrasMac (
Offline) - Published: November 8th, 2026 10:17
- Comment from author about the poem: Pulled from Heaney's "Weighing In" and an attempt to say that I'm not the poet nor the man he was. It also attempts to say a little about life and its burdens.
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 3
Offline)
Comments2
I love the way the poem starts off advising the reader that the weights are metaphors. The burden that lightens with growth and age now requires the person to carry more. Never free and unable to find the door. Well written
There’s real weight in this poem, both literal and emotional. The image of carrying two 56lb anchors through life, still searching for that hopeful door, stays with you. Beautifully grounded writing, with a hard-earned ache beneath it.
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