At my last Chapters visit I scored 3 Victorian novels (A Tale of Two Cities, Far From the Madding Crowd, Pride and Prejudice) and 2 books of poetry, one being Seamus Heaney's 2010 publication, Human Chain (the other being a Margaret Atwood collection with a fox on it that I can't remember the name of at the moment....).
I haven't made my whole way through Heaney's collection yet, but I'm very taken with the first poem, "'Had I not been awake'". As I said, no analyzing, just sharing. And here I go.
'Had I not been awake'
Had I not been awake I would have missed it,
A wind that rose and whirled until the roof
Pattered with quick leaves of the sycamore
And got me up, the whole of me a-patter,
Alive and ticking like an electric fence:
Had I not been awake I would have missed it,
It came and went so unexpectedly
And almost it seemed dangerously,
Returning like an animal to the house,
A courier blast that there and then
Lapsed ordinary. But not ever
After. And not now.
Make of it what you will. At the very base of all things poetical- isn't that the point?
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