Nothing magnificent, nothing unknown.
A gazing out from far away, alone.
Just old truth dawning: there is no next-time-round.
Unroofed scope. Knowledge-freshening wind.
—Seamus Heaney
NOTE
—Seamus Heaney, above: from the poem Lightning in Seeing Things (1991)
—Seamus Heaney, below: The Stone Verdict in The Haw Lantern (1987)
Irish poet Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) was awarded the Nobel in Literature in 1995.
CODA
The Stone Verdict
When he stands in the judgement place
With his stick in his hand and the broad hat
Still on his head, maimed by self-doubt
And an old disdain of sweet talk and excuses,
It will be no justice if the sentence is blabbed out.
He will expect more than words in the ultimate court
He relied on through a lifetime's speechlessness.
Let it be like the judgement of Hermes,
God of the stone heap, where the stones were verdicts
Cast solidly at his feet, piling up around him
Until he stood waist-deep in the cairn
Of his own absolution: maybe a gate-pillar
Or a tumbled wallstead where hogweed earths the silence
Somebody will break at last to say, 'Here
His spirit lingers,' and will have said too much.
