I'm Sorry

I've been so busy reading poetry and writing about it for my 2013 Poetry Challenge that I haven't had the time or energy to write new and exciting posts for you. I apologize. You deserve some clever poetry insights.

Today I'd like to talk about Seamus Heaney, who passed away last week. Heaney was an amazing Irish poet, and I'd read about three of his poems before he died. That's embarrassing but true. There are so many great poets out there, so many famous, acclaimed ones, too, that no matter how much you try to keep up, you will find that you've missed something. I missed Heaney, and now that I've found him, I feel guilty for not noticing him while he was alive. I won't list his accomplishments here, as you surely know how to use Google. I will, however, provide you with one his poems, which just happens to be the poem I read and wrote about this morning.

Anything Can Happen 

by Seamus Heaney

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter

Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head

Before he hurls the lightening? Well, just now

He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth

And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,

The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.

Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,

Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune

Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,

Setting it down bleeding on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven's weight

Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.

Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.

Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

This poem could mean so many things. It could be a metaphor for natural disasters or man-made tragedies or human relationships. It can be whatever you want it to be. It's colossal. Today, I like to think of it as an homage. Heaney's gone, and the gods have spoken.