Honeymoon Flight

Using an extended metaphor Heaney draws a parallel between the act of faith required to board an aeroplane and the concerns that newly-weds harbour. The ‘flight’ is both a literal plane journey and, figuratively, an intentional move into uncharted territory, less a reference to the post-marital event than metaphor for the journey required and undertaken to achieve durable togetherness. Heaney has a bird’s-eye view (Below) of Ulster beneath the flight-path (patchwork earth, dark hems of hedge). Its landscape recalls the symbolic rituals of the recently celebrated wedding: roads resemble the long grey tapes placed symbolically by the priest across the hands of bride and groom to unite the couple (bind), mirroring the loose road-network linking the Irish countryside in casual […]