Between
my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
Seamus Heaney
Digging |
The
famous
Northern reticence, the tight gag of place
And times: yes, yes. Of the 'wee six' I sing
Where to be saved you only must save face
And whatever you say, you say nothing.
Seamus Heaney
What You Say Say Nothing |
I
rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.
Seamus Heaney
Personal Helicon (For Michael Longley). |
Who
would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.
Seamus Heaney
Punishment |
All
I know is a door into the dark.
Seamus Heaney
The Forge |
A
people hungering from birth,
grubbing, like plants, in the bitch earth,
were grafted with a great sorrow.
Seamus Heaney
At a Potato Digging |
Wearing
a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot,
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.
Seamus Heaney
Mid-Term Break |
How
culpable was he
That last night when he broke
Our tribe's complicity?
'Now you're supposed to be
An educated man,'
I hear him say. 'Puzzle me
The right answer to that one.'
Seamus Heaney
Casualty |
Me
waiting until I was nearly fifty
To credit marvels.
Seamus Heaney
Fosterling |
Be
advised
My passport's green.
No glass of ours was ever raised
To toast The Queen.
Seamus Heaney
Open Letter |
History
says, Don't hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.
Seamus Heaney
The Cure at Troy |