ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

 

ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

 

ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

 

ΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

 

ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

 

ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

ΑΓΑΠΗΜΕΝΑ ΒΙΒΛΙΑ

ΔΙΑΒΑΣΜΑΤΑ ΠΑΡΑ ΘΙΝ' ΑΛΟΣ

ΔΙΑΒΑΣΜΑΤΑ ΠΑΡΑ ΘΙΝ' ΑΛΟΣ

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.

ΣΕΪΜΟΥΣ ΧΗΝΥ!

SEAMUS HEANEY

SHIFTING BRILLIANCES

Shifting brilliancies. Then winter light
In a doorway, and on the stone doorstep
A beggar shivering in silhouette.

So the particular judgement might be set:
Bare wallstead and a cold hearth rained into–
Bright puddle where the soul-free cloud-life roams.

And after the commanded journey, what?
Nothing magnificent, nothing unknown.
A gazing out from far away, alone.

And it is not particular at all,
Just old truth dawning: there is no next-time-round.
Unroofed scope. Knowledge-freshening wind.

ΣΕΪΜΟΥΣ ΧΗΝΥ!

SEAMUS HEANEY

THE FIRST WORDS

The first words got polluted
Like river water in the morning
Flowing with the dirt
Of blurbs and the front pages.
My only drink is meaning from the deep brain,
What the birds and the grass and the stones drink.
Let everything flow
Up to the four elements,
Up to water and earth and fire and air.

ΣΗΜΟΥΣ ΧΗΝΥ!

SEAMUS HEANEY

SONG

A rowan like a lipsticked girl.
Between the by-road and the main road
Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance
Stand off among the rushes.

There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens.

ΣΕΪΜΟΥΣ ΧΗΝΥ!

SEAMUS HEANEY

A DRINK OF WATER

She came every morning to draw water
Like an old bat staggering up the field:
The pump’s whooping cough, the bucket’s clatter
And slow diminuendo as it filled,
Announced her. I recall
Her grey apron, the pocked white enamel
Of the brimming bucket, and the treble
Creak of her voice like the pump’s handle.
Nights when a full moon lifted past her gable
It fell back through her window and would lie
Into the water set out on the table.
Where I have dipped to drink again, to be
Faithful to the admonishment on her cup,
Remember the Giver, fading off the lip.