Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Jan 20, 2021 - 7:56pm
Also from earlier today. Biden often cites lines from this poem. (perhaps previously posted in this forum)
The Cure of Troy
by Seamus Heaney
“Human beings suffer, They torture one another, They get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song Can fully right a wrong Inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols Beat on their bars together. A hunger-striker’s father Stands in the graveyard dumb. The police widow in veils Faints at the funeral home.
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.
So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge. Believe that further shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracle And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing: The utter, self-revealing Double-take of feeling. If there’s fire on the mountain Or lightning and storm And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing The outcry and the birth-cry Of new life at its term.”
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world Came people singing, dancing, To drive the dark away. They lighted candles in the winter trees; They hung their homes with evergreen; They burned beseeching fires all night long To keep the year alive. And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake They shouted, reveling. Through all the frosty ages you can hear them Echoing behind us—listen! All the long echoes, sing the same delight, This Shortest Day, As promise wakens in the sleeping land: They carol, feast, give thanks, And dearly love their friends, And hope for peace. And now so do we, here, now, This year and every year. Welcome, Yule!
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world Came people singing, dancing, To drive the dark away. They lighted candles in the winter trees; They hung their homes with evergreen; They burned beseeching fires all night long To keep the year alive. And when the new yearâs sunshine blazed awake They shouted, reveling. Through all the frosty ages you can hear them Echoing behind usâlisten! All the long echoes, sing the same delight, This Shortest Day, As promise wakens in the sleeping land: They carol, feast, give thanks, And dearly love their friends, And hope for peace. And now so do we, here, now, This year and every year. Welcome, Yule!
A silence slipping around like death, Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh, a breath; One group of trees, lean, naked and cold, Inking their cress 'gainst a sky green-gold; One path that knows where the corn flowers were; Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir; And over it softly leaning down, One star that I loved ere the fields went brown.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Dec 7, 2020 - 8:07pm
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. Useless 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.
The heart of the matter, the ghost of a chance, A tremor, a fever, an ache in the chest. The moth and the candle beginning their dance, A cool white sheet on which nothing will rest.
Come sit beside me. I've waited alone. What you need to confess I already know. The scent of your shame is a heavy cologne That lingers for hours after you go.
The dregs of the bottle, the end of the line, The laggard, the loser, the last one to know. The unfinished book, the dead-end sign, And last summer's garden buried in snow.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Dec 6, 2020 - 9:51am
The Heart of the Matter
The heart of the matter, the ghost of a chance, A tremor, a fever, an ache in the chest. The moth and the candle beginning their dance, A cool white sheet on which nothing will rest.
Come sit beside me. I've waited alone. What you need to confess I already know. The scent of your shame is a heavy cologne That lingers for hours after you go.
The dregs of the bottle, the end of the line, The laggard, the loser, the last one to know. The unfinished book, the dead-end sign, And last summer's garden buried in snow.
