poet Seamus Heaney (Castledawson 1939 - Dublin, Ireland 2013)

The wintry haw is burning out of season,
crab of the thorn, a small light for small people,
wanting no more from them but that they keep
the wick of self-respect from dying out,
not having to blind them with illumination.

The Haw Lantern, Seamus Heaney, Literature Prize 1995

Mossbawn 1. Sunlight

for Mary Heaney

I. Sunlight

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

Seamus Heaney

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.

By Seamus Heaney
From "North", 1975
Copyright © Seamus Heaney

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