I'm out to find that village

 In a land known for its poets, Seamus Heaney still stands out. The committee that awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 cited his “works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.”

Well, yes.

Born in Ulster, Heaney’s literary career took him many places, but he chose to live in the Republic and he wrote frequently about Ireland and Irish history. His “Requiem for the Croppies” is utter heartbreak.

Today, however, we’ll have something less terrible. Just the joy of spring in Ireland.

“May”

When I looked down from the bridge

Trout were flipping the sky

Into smithereens, the stones

Of the wall warmed me.

Wading green stems, lugs of leaf

That untangle and bruise

(Their tiny gushers of juice)

My toecaps sparkle now

Over the soft fontanel

Of Ireland. I should wear

Hide shoes, the hair next my skin,

For walking this ground:

Wasn’t there a spa-well,

Its coping grassy, pendent?

And then the spring issuing

Right across the tarmac.

I’m out to find that village,

Its low sills fragrant

With ladysmock and celandine,

Marshlights in the summer dark.