Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - "A Dog Was Crying Tonight in Wicklow Also" By Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

one more i recommend to people to read. this great poem by heaney evokes the british tanks moving into ireland
today i read of rwandan tanks being moved in the direction of the drc where their m23 militia is being beaten by the un and drc forces. the dogs of war continue in the congo, year after year. how does it feel to the people living there? heaney's poem seems so very appropriate: (esp this line, "How long were they approaching down my roads/ as is they owned them?"  ken

The Toome Road

One morning early I met armoured cars

In convoy, warbling along on powerful tyres,

All camouflaged with broken alder branches,

And headphoned soldiers standing up in turrets.

How long were they approaching down my roads

As if they owned them? The whole country was sleeping.

I had rights-of-way, fields, cattle in my keeping,

Tractors hitched to buckrakes in open sheds,

Silos, chill gates, wet slates, the greens and reds

Of outhouse roofs. Whom should I run to tell

Among all of those with their back doors on the latch

For the bringer of bad news, that small-hours visitant

Who, by being expected, might be kept distant?

Sowers of seed, erectors of headstones...

O charioteers, above your dormant guns,

It stands here still, stands vibrant as you pass,

The visible, untoppled omphalos.

On 8/30/13 7:33 PM, Ikhide wrote:

 

By Seamus Heaney (April 13, 1939 - August 30, 2013)

 

When human beings found out about death

They sent the dog to Chukwu with a message:

They wanted to be let back to the house of life.

They didn't want to end up lost forever

Like burnt wood disappearing into smoke

And ashes that get blown away to nothing.

Instead, they saw their souls in a flock at twilight

Cawing and headed back for the same old roosts

(The dog was meant to tell all this to Chukwu).

But death and human beings took second place

When he trotted off the path and started barking

At another dog in broad daylight just barking

Back at him from the far bank of a river.

And that was how the toad reached Chukwu first,

The toad who'd overheard in the beginning

What the dog was meant to tell. 'Human beings' he said,

(And here the toad was trusted absolutely),

'Human beings want death to last forever.'

Then Chukwu saw the people's souls in birds

Coming towards him like black spots off the sunset

To where there were no roosts or nests or trees

And his mind reddened and darkened all at once

And nothing that the dog would tell him later

Could change that vision. Great chiefs and great loves

Obliterating light, the toad in mud,

The dog crying out all night behind the corpse house.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/contemporary-poets-10-seamus-heaney-1540767.html

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--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  distinguished professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu