Postscript (Heaney)

[glasspyramids.livejournal.com]

Hello, insomnia. How nice to see you again.

We know how Adrian saw humanity, when he decided on his plan of action. What other moments, captured in memory, unique and savored and unmentioned, made the sacrifice worthwhile?


Postscript by Seamus Heaney

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 lightening of 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 or 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

Comments

[flyingrat42.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this.

I've loved this Heaney poem for a long time (a college roommate introduced me to it, if I'm remembering correctly) and it is powerful, indeed. It's that last line that does it for me, really, as such a poignant expression of what it really does feel like in the transcendent moments when something, a random image or experience (or even poem), just utterly blindsides you with a feeling you can't even express.

eugenetapdance expressed the thought at one point that Adrian wants to save the world so much simply because it has beauty in it. I think this poem captures that marvelously.