Heaney's The follower

My father worked with a horse plough,His shoulders globed like a full sail strungBetween the shafts and the furrow.The horses strained at his clicking tongue.An expert. He would set the wingAnd fit the bright-pointed sock.The sod rolled over without breaking.At the headrig, with a single pluckOf reins, the sweating team turned roundAnd back into the land. His eyeNarrowed and angled at the ground,Mapping the furrow exactly.I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,Fell sometimes on the polished sod;Sometimes he rode me on his backDipping and rising to his plod.I wanted to grow up and plough,To close one eye, stiffen my arm.All I ever did was followIn his broad shadow around the farm.I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,Yapping always. But todayIt is my father who keeps stumblingBehind me, and will not go away.

In Seamus Heraney's Follower, the author uses Nautical imagery as a way to show direction. Heaneys uses nautical imagery to show a theme of direction in ageing, expressed through his father.
This is first seen in how Heaney describes his father. "His father globed like a full sail strung. Heaney He uses this show his fathers strength, as it was like a full sail. Another such nautical imagery is the use of Mapping, in "Mapping his furrow exactly" this is used to show his fathers way of mapping the landscape on his farm.
These images are used, through his father to show the direction of his father taken in life. The importance of direction for the young author is shown the father's description, using nautical imagery. This imagery, which in a literal sense is used for the direction of things, shows the strong influence and importance of these directions. The authors awe, of his father and "wonder" of "An expert" (of plowing) is the reason this nautical imagery is used, as the young boy I believe is in wonder of how his father came to be such a figure. He also may be in wonder to how he could be such as person.