Remembering Heaney on His Funeral

Today the funeral ceremony of Seamus Heaney was held in his native Bellaghy. Heaney's poetry walks that rough path on the edge of quotidian events and mystical recognitions.  One of my favorite passages in literature comes from his poem Lovers on Aran.

"Did sea define the land or land the sea? 

Each drew new meaning from the waves' collision.
Sea broke on land to full identity."*

And of course my personal favorite for his forwardness and wit is this short piece which was written as an objection to being included in an anthology of British poetry in 1982. He recognized himself as Irish. 

"Be advised my passport's green.

No glass of ours was ever raised

to toast the Queen." 

Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past".

* Lovers on Aran

The timeless waves, bright, sifting, broken glass,
Came dazzling around, into the rocks,
Came glinting, sifting from the Americas

To posess Aran. Or did Aran rush
to throw wide arms of rock around a tide
That yielded with an ebb, with a soft crash?

Did sea define the land or land the sea?
Each drew new meaning from the waves' collision.
Sea broke on land to full identity.

Romantic Sensibility & Existentialist Mind

How I find my self trapped in my ever-reducing sensations, which are damaged by the conditions of my existence, I do not know. And why is it that way, does not matter anymore.It should have never mattered.  Perhaps one day I will figure the ways in which the daily matters of existence operate. And I fear that day, for my days will be the most tedious after the figuration happens; when there are no more questions left, there will be no motivations to continue one's existence. I will consider myself 'learned' if one day I find the kind of conviction that Rilke displayed in his letters to "the young poet," the dear Mr. Kappus, for he despite his dilemmatic struggles writes: 

"But every thing that may someday be possible for many people, the solitary man can now,already, prepare and build with his own hands, which make fewer mistakes.Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away, you write, and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast. And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust. Avoid providing material for the drama, that is always stretched tight between parent and children; it uses up much of the children's strength and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn't comprehend Don't ask for any advice from them and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it." [ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, Worpswede, near Bremen, July 16, 1903.]

Maybe one day I will find such conviction, but for now, it is time for me to do the"heart-work!"*

*"The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you." [Rilke, Wendung (Turning Point)]

Once Called a Sensation!

The murmur of the moments past,

And the resistance of the vanishing memories,

Shape the nostalgic residues of something once called a sensation!

A shape so abstract to the mind that its existence is not recognized.

And so in its unnoticed existence liberation begins!  

Sense Of Something Coming (Rilke)

I am like a flag in the center of open space.
I sense ahead the wind which is coming, and must live
it through.
while the things of the world still do not move:
the doors still close softly, and the chimneys are full
of silence,
the windows do not rattle yet, and the dust still lies down.

I already know the storm, and I am troubled as the sea.
I leap out, and fall back,
and throw myself out, and am absolutely alone
in the great storm.


Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated by Robert Bly

Your Colors!

When colors brush on a surface;

that reflection of light, 

that trace of matter, 

When colors touch another existence;

that tapping of heart beats, 

that pulse of emotions,

When your colors,

the vibrant colors of your complexion; the gentle colors of your aura,   

all those colors that together form the charming existence that is you,  

When your colors,

murmur to my eyes, 

I become a rainbow!

No need for rain, no need for sunshine, Just you!

The reflection of your celestial light that leaves a tender trace on my matter! 

No need for rain, no need for sunshine,  Just you!

The tapping of your lively beat that creates an untouchable pulse in me!

When your colors,

murmur to my eyes,

I become a rainbow!

* For D.T.F.

Like Two Feathers ...

Like two feathers,

dancing in the marvels of the space,

leaving a golden imprint behind,

Like two feathers,

Captured and freed,

Like two feathers, golden feathers,

touching the sapphire corners of a dream, 

in a weightless sail to an endless delight, 

Like two feathers,

We dance to the golden melody of each other’s eyes,

Like two feathers

We leave the whispered curves of our motion in the sapphire corners of our dream!

Like two feathers we weightlessly sail  to an endless delight!  



- For  D.T.F.