Write about the ways Seamus Heaney uses nature in at least one poem

Seamus Heaney utilises nature frequently in his poems as a vehicle for wider themes. Heaney typically refers to the nature that surrounded him as a child, using the memory of his surroundings to explore events from a more adult perspective.  For example, in his poem 'Digging' Heaney recalls the memory of his father digging potatoes in his garden, the memory of this, and Heaney's youthful admiration of his father is shattered by watching his father struggle to dig a flowerbed as he writes. His father's aging has transformed him from a heroic figure in the eyes of the young Heaney to an old man no longer capable of what he used to achieve. 'Digging' therefore utilises Heaney's childhood memories of nature to mark the passage of time, showing the continuation of a relationship between his father and the ground despite his difficulty in doing so.