ΣΕΗΜΟΥΣ ΧΗΝΥ

SEAMUS HEANEY

THE WATCHMAN’S WAR

Some people wept, and not for sorrow – joy

That the king had armed and upped and sailed for Troy,

But inside me like struck sound in a gong

That killing-fest, the life-warp and world-wrong

It brought to pass, still augured and endured.

I’d dream of blood in bright webs in a ford,

Of bodies raining down like tattered meat

On top of me asleep – and me the lookout

The queen’s command had posted and forgotten,

The blind spot her farsightedness relied on.

And then the ox would lurch against the gong

And deaden it and I would feel my tongue

Like the dropped gangplank of a cattle truck,

Trampled and rattled, running piss and muck,

All swimmy-trembly as the lick of fire,

A victory beacon in an abattoir...

Next thing then I would waken at a loss,

For all the world a sheepdog stretched in grass,

Exposed to what I knew, still honour-bound

To concentrate attention out beyond

The city and the border, on that line

Where the blaze would leap the hills when Troy had fallen.

My sentry work was fate, a home to go to,

An in-between-times that I had to row through

Year after year: when the mist would start

To lift off fields and inlets, when morning light

Would open like the grain of light being split,

Day in, day out, I’d come alive again,

Silent and sunned as an esker on a plain,

Up on my elbows, gazing, biding time

In my outpost on the roof... What was to come

Out of that ten years’ wait that was the war

Flawed the black mirror of my frozen stare.

If a god of justice had reached down from heaven

For a strong beam to hang his scale-pans on

He would have found me tensed and ready-made.

I balanced between destiny and dread

And saw it coming, clouds bloodshot with the red

Of victory fires, the raw wound of that dawn

Igniting and erupting, bearing down

Like lava on a fleeing population...

Up on my elbows, head back, shutting out

The agony of Clytemnestra’s love-shout

That rose through the palace like the yell of troops

Hurled by King Agamemnon from the ships.