Old Smoothing Iron

Edgar Degas

Old Smoothing Iron

Often I watched her lift it

from where its compact wedge

rode the back of the stove

like a tug at anchor.

To test its heat by ear

she spat in its iron face

or held it up next her cheek

to divine the stored danger.

Soft thumps on the ironing board.

Her dimpled angled elbow

and intent stoop

as she aimed the smoothing iron

like a plane into linen

like the resentment of women

To work, her dumb lunge says,

is to move a certain mass

through a certain distance,

is to pull your weight and feel

exact and equal to it.

Feel dragged upon. And buoyant.

Seamus Heaney


Seamus, Seamus, your poems fill me with such affection. Who is this woman you observed at her work? A mother, a sister, a wife? It doesn't matter who, I suppose. What does matter is that you saw it, and it stayed with you. Here's a woman working - and you are not insensitive to what that work demands. I like that "the resentment of women", it's so true, in household work there is a tinge (and sometimes more), an undercurrent of self-sacrifice. It's personal work, after all, for people who often need more than one can give. And yet, it's personal work, the work at the heart of the universe, the work that takes the most, the work that Seamus shows has gravity, but in it's own peculiar way, elevates. That last line is remarkable - "To work...is to pull your weight and feel exact and equal to it. Feel dragged upon. And buoyant." Words to think on.