What has always appealed to me most about writing is the idea of leaving something behind that can continue to affect people long after I am gone. The world lost a great poet. Seamus Heaney died at age 74 leaving behind a body of work that will long outlive his tired bones. I am not a poet. I envy the weight and brevity that good poets have. And I shy from the responsibility of having to convey so much with so few words. A nice little piece on Heaney from The New York Times here. And my personal favorite…
Postscript
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
THE LITTLE BLACQUE BLOG 