INTRO TO ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE HEART BY STEVEN JOHN

 

Introduction

Archaeology, n. the scientific study of the human antiquities, usu. as discovered by excavation. (Chambers Concise 20^th Century Dictionary, 1985).

Heart, n. the (imagined) seat of the affections, understanding and thought, as opposed to the head, the seat of reason; courage; vigour (Chambers, ibid).

So there’s our brief. With pickaxe, shovel, and broom over our shoulders; a magnifying-glass, pair of tweezers, and small plastic bag (recyclable, of course) in our pocket, we venture forth into this book of poetry to unearth what makes us human. We expect to find buried hordes of affection, amphoras of understanding, and intricate mosaics of thought. Will our digging implements clang onto arrowheads of reason, remnants of courage, or the skeletal remains of vigour? Like all good archaeologists, we prepare ourselves for both treasure, and the sorry reminders of a turbulent past.

As poets scrape away at the emotional topsoil with their words and verses, they uncover aspects of our lives we have long forgotten, or unwittingly, they let the cold light of day shine on bones we wish had stayed buried. To borrow the metaphor from Seamus Heaney’s poem Digging

            Between my finger and my thumb

            The squat pen rests,

            I’ll dig with it.

 

The final poem titled The Last Page, in this fifth collection by Limerick based poet Kieran Beville, is the tell-tale sign of archaeology waiting to be found:-

Memory the leitmotif – 

Themes of love and loss,

A counting of the cost.

 

Do we all, at some point, (usually during the evening of our allotted days), reflect on the cost of choices made, this path taken rather than the other? But how many of us are lucky enough to reach Beville’s sagacious conclusion?

I no longer look for reasons

Why it was thus and thus, my friend.

 

For those of us fortunate enough to have been a parent, perhaps the need for preserving the heart’s antiquities begins when we find ourselves quiet and alone, without our most valuable contribution to the future – our children. In The Blue Bike, Beville recalls a Christmas gift to a son:

I prayed he would not fall.

Hoped he would safely return.

I'm still standing there 

After all these years.

 

This surely echoes the thoughts of many parents; that we’re still standing here, like archaeological standing stones - erected for some profound purpose, but perhaps unsure now what that was.

For most of us, the pain of committing our grandparents and parents to the earth is something that fades with time, but never leaves us completely. We sometimes unexpectedly uncover archaeology of them, hidden in plain sight. For me, it’s my late grandfather’s still-used gardening tools. In Golden Threads, Beville recalls his mother’s skill as a needlewoman:

            The patina of her ageing hands

Hovering like a pair of doves.

The beauty of her needlework,

With golden threads of love.

 

Archaeology comes in many shapes and sizes, from the humble plague pits in the path of new underground railways, to the majestic pyramids, long-barrows and henges of long-forgotten kings and queens. In the same manner, arguably the most sacred of our heart’s archaeology is found behind the hieroglyphs of lost love. In the poem West Cork, Beville returns us to a time and place of his youth, and wonders:

I am encircled now by eternal seasons,

Ever changing, always the same.

Foliage folds its wings and gives no reasons

Why love went or why it ever came

 

We spy on a first encounter of love and lust in The Long-Handled Spoon:

We were wet with summer rain

When we shared your broken umbrella

And a Knickerbocker Glory

In the basement of the Wimpy.

The trumpet glass clinked a tune

As we fed each other

With a long-handled spoon.

A Laurel Hill girl, skirt, maroon,

Hitched high upon her bronzed thighs

 

And in Two Ships a retrospective of lost love, marriage, partnership – the desire to still see the foundations of the bridge – if not the bridge itself:-

            Do not let self-pity and regrets

Make a desolation of your heart

For we have traversed the same

Dark waters, but apart.

And if we should meet again

May we greet each other,

Not as lovers, but as friends.

 

Kieran Beville is undoubtedly an observant and thorough archaeologist in the finest traditions of ‘digging’ poets. There isn’t a layer of dust on any artefact of the heart, which he hasn’t assiduously brushed away, to reveal hidden history. With accessible and uncomplicated candour, Beville’s work will appeal to a broad church of poetry readers, from the casual ‘dipper-in’, to regular readers. Buried in these pages lies the stories of all of our lives.

Steven John, MA (Creative and Critical Writing)

Joint Managing Editor, The Phare Literary Magazine

www.thephare.com

www.stevenjohnwriter.com