in memoriam: seamus heaney (1939-2013)

today, i am sad. i used to imagine meeting him someday. it's strange, because i haven't read much of his work. but what i did read (mid term break, singing school, gifts of rain), i adored. he wrote lines that stuck in my ears for days.

so i wrote him a poem, as the overly invested fans are wont to do. a double-acrostic, even, because i needed a wall to push against.
here it is.

--

elegy

“The main thing is to write for the joy of it.”

-Seamus Heaney

and so, these things remain - but no cascade of light//

no gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear//in the porch//

dark blobs burned/like a plate of eyes. inter alia.

the world is tending towards stillness, my love. towards quiet.

heat death, they call it, the whole universe one mass of low

energy. you know. your words carry the weight. momento mori.

jesus christ, son of god, have mercy. have mercy, spirit, my will

often weak; my spirit crying out in this thin time, in this thin place. will

you remind me, a chuisle, a chroí; what is poetry for?

once, he said that there is holy force to art. and the words were

full of power. yes, they were. I believed him.

I am not a scholar of the written word, nor a

teacher, nor author. I am only a writer, and I

am also only learning. even so, I knew right from when

lines jumped from page to ear to pulse, warm

like wine hitting my blood, letting me dance, setting my

yearning loose; I knew, sitting strangely in that stranger

evening, crowded around desks on a tuesday night, the              

sweat cold on my palms, classmates reading poems where burqa                 

enters walmart, horses run under the sky, husbands          

vow to love their wives, oh, I knew I would read more, two

easy poems not enough. I knew he knew things. my throat feels tight. in

no living world, now, will I meet this man, whose picture I saw       

staring out at me, it seemed. it isn’t fair. sláinte. good health.

oblige me. lift the glass. now tilt your mouth up, smile just a little wry.