Wednesday, January 21, 2009

hope and history rhyme

Last night, as I was watching the television coverage of the festivities in Washington, I found myself sobbing yet one more time. How many times in a day can the heart break open, releasing cynicism, letting in joy? I turned the television off and cried a good long time after witnessing Joe Biden quote a line from a poem of the poet Seamus Heaney. As if life wasn't good enough, it turns out our Vice President is the kind of guy who quotes Irish poets.

Brigid is pleased. She can't wait until her feast day to have the whole poem shared..so I'll do that right now.

What poem will I find for February 2nd?



Doubletake

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 a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the 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.

Seamus Heaney,

7 comments:

Hecate said...

Damn. I love that poem

Reya Mellicker said...

And not just any Irish poet! Love Seamus.

So glad you're blogging again. January 20th felt like new year's day to me.

I loved what Ken Burns said about the two qualities of hope and virtue - that hope was the word used in the campaign, a rather passive word, but virtue is insistent, a call to action, now!

Oh yeah!

Will spread the word about poetry on Feb. 2. Onwards & upwards.

Anonymous said...

Wow! I had not seen or heard the poem before. Wow!

I didn't now that the Vice-Prez had quoted poetry in public. Wow again!

What other wonders await us in this dawning new age?

Unknown said...

Thank you. I must have missed that part while our internet connection jammed up.

"So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge."

Wow, I do. It seems exactly the one thing one can hope for now.

I have never before felt so proud to be American and so ashamed to be Israeli.

Anonymous said...

I was thinking of Imbolc yesterday and today. I can't wait for it and yet I must. Brigid remains a motivating force in my life, and the annual celebration of poetic vision really lifts my spirits just prior to the springtime kicking off!

Cat said...

Thanks for that I will use it with my students.

Leon1234 said...

This was beautiful. Thank you!!