Weekly Poem: 'Death of a Naturalist'

**By Seamus Heaney**
All the year the flax-dam festered in the heart Of the townland; green and heavy headed Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods. Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun. Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell. There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies, But best of all was the warm thick slobber Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring I would fill jampots full of the jellied Specks to range on the window-sills at home, On shelves at school, and wait and watch until The fattening dots burst into nimble- Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how The daddy frog was called a bullfrog And how he croaked and how the mammy frog Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too For they were yellow in the sun and brown In rain. Then one hot day when fields were rank With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges To a coarse croaking that I had not heard Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus. Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked On sods; their loose necks pulsed like snails. Some hopped: The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting. I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.     In his native Ireland, he's known as "Famous Seamus," and indeed, "Seamus Heaney":http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/seamus-heaney -- winner of the Nobel Prize in 1995 -- is a world-famous poet. Now 72, his newest collection, "Human Chain," contains poems that are, as always for Heaney, grounded in the physical world, but also now take a look back. "Jeffrey Brown recently sat down with Heaney":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec11/poet_10-24.html to talk about the new collection. For more poetry coverage, visit our "Poetry Series":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/.