Thursday, August 20, 2009

Heaney's Postscript


In his poem 'Postscript' (from his collection 'The Spirit Level'), Seamus Heaney describes a moment during a drive along the Flaggy Shore and captures the atmosphere of the place as only that man can.



Postscript


And some time make the time to drive out west

Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when the wind

And the light are working off each other

So that the ocean on one side is wild

With foam and glitter, and inland among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit

By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,

Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.

Unless to think you'll park and capture it

More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

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