Seamus Heaney - Blog Posts

reblogging to share w my mutuals and whatever wayward soul stumbles upon this beauty <33

The Rain Stick

by Seamus Heaney

Up-end the stick and what happens next is a music that you never would have known to listen for. In a cactus stalk

Downpour, sluice-rush, spillage and backwash come flowing through. You stand there like a pipe being played by water, you shake it again lightly

and diminuendo runs through all its scales like a gutter stopping trickling. And now here comes a sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves,

Then subtle little wets off grass and daisies; the glitter-drizzle, almost-breaths of air. up-end the stick again. What happens next

is undiminished for having happened once, twice, ten, and thousand times before. who cares if all the music that transpires

is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus? You are like a rich man entering heaven through the ear of a raindrop. Listen now again.  

was chilling in my english course the other day and we went over seamus heaney

needless to say,, i’m in love with the man. 😋💕

“Who cares if all the music that transpires //

Is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus? //

You are like a rich man entering heaven //

Through the ear of a rain drop. Listen now again.”

…why did he eat it up like that…🥴🥴🥴 literally like i am in love with this line. his poem The Rain Stick just made me astral project into the air of the lecture hall i was in..

THIS IS WHAT I NEED!!! either a poet whispers something like this in my ear or someone volunteers to be my subject !

seamus heaney,, I AM LISTENING THROUGH THE EAR OF A RAINDROP!!!!

Scaffolding by Seamus Heaney

For Seamus

Upon the eve of the darkening hue While the greens deepen and the deprived insects rustle, There is now a figure featureless set against a slanted sky. I noted a steady breeze as it was thread through the horizon-less cloud and the air transmuted to a single voice. Its nervous quality borne of surprise Knowing there is no silence rich enough. The shoreline rests upon an empty seabed We will fill the space with the right words, Before returning to the interrupted paths he knew well. the sweep of thorns, When daily toil brushed up against eternal question. A shifting landscape stands still in a soft dusky ardour over the wordsmith, gone on ahead. We peer in from outside immortality.