I am not familiar with snowdrops and in fact had never heard of them before.
I am in a class reading the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize winner 1995.
This afternoon I read an poem called Mid Term Break which Heaney wrote in 1969.
It was about the death of his younger brother Christopher. Toward the end of the poem
Heaney goes upstairs to see the body for the first time.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.
- snowdrops: white flowers that bloom in winter
It was the day for snowdrops to turn up.
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