The Tollund Man

The Tollund Man by Seamus Heaney

I

Some day I will go to Aarhus

To see his peat-brown head,

The mild pods of his eye-lids,

His pointed skin cap.

In the flat country near by

Where they dug him out,

His last gruel of winter seeds

Caked in his stomach,

Naked except for

The cap, noose and girdle,

I will stand a long time.

Bridegroom to the goddess,

She tightened her torc on him

And opened her fen,

Those dark juices working

Him to a saint's kept body,

Trove of the turfcutters'

Honeycombed workings.

Now his stained face

Reposes at Aarhus.

II

I could risk blasphemy,

Consecrate the cauldron bog

Our holy ground and pray

Him to make germinate

The scattered, ambushed

Flesh of labourers,

Stockinged corpses

Laid out in the farmyards,

Tell-tale skin and teeth

Flecking the sleepers

Of four young brothers, trailed

For miles along the lines.

III

Something of his sad freedom

As he rode the tumbril

Should come to me, driving,

Saying the names

Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard,

Watching the pointing hands

Of country people,

Not knowing their tongue.

Out here in Jutland

In the old man-killing parishes

I will feel lost,

Unhappy and at home.

MossBawn Sunlight - another Heaney Classic

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.

© Seamus Heaney 1975 

BOOK REVIEW

O Derry Boy by Mervyn Cooke

O Derry Boy movie of sorts

Captian Beefheart 1941 - 2010 Dec

And I dreamt

And I dreamt my uncle sat on a sack
At the back of the tractor
his brother the driver
And I squeezed in, somehow
my feet on a chain that held something
And some sway as our exhaust wheezed o'er the hill

The sky, the sea, the sand slipped by
Leaving farm-house and fireside far below.

The keepers of the mountain
with their tangled horns
and spot-red fleece cross eyed us
they scattered and spilled
with syrupy sure-footedness
across their rock carpet domain

Cruel crows caught by their beaked curiosity
Hung lazily from posts
Their dried feathers flapping
Their spirits flown
Where sky and moor and harshness closed in

What gold we found beneath the earth
Was cut and chopped and carved for warm dreams
Of Sunday afternoons sleeping uncles

Guarded by the soldierly tick-tock, tick-tock
Of the grandfather clock
as time itself stood still
in that sun spilled living room

The tidy death of flies lay on the sill
the dying buzz-buzz of a bluebottle
strained to escape
its laced-curtain prison
back to the mountain.

© 2009 Mervyn Cooke

Rhyme & Reason 20th Anniversary edition - Viva Chile

They have just released the 20 th Anniversary edition of Rhyme & Reason

A couple of poems from O Derry Boy are there for the first time published in UK.

Chile - what can I say - here is a version of what i wrote for the Chinese audience.

69 days, 33 miners, 1 dream

From the moment we knew the miners were alive, their ordeal, their journey has captivated millions of people across the world. Their fears became our fears 。 Their hopes became our hopes。 Their dream became our dream。 They are our brothers。And as brothers and sisters we prayed.  We prayed for their safe return. And their journey has begun.

Their faith in God, in the human spirit and in the co-operation of their fellow citizens gave them the strength to ascend from the darkness into the clear， bright light of day.  They were re-born, alive again.

I have lived in South America.  I know their culture. I know their language. I know their spirit.

And I know today, across Chile their hearts and voices and spirit will shout ‘Viva Chile’, ‘ Viva los 33 mineros’  May their message be an inspiration to us and to all people.