Seamus Heaney R.I.P. - "Casualty"

Poem of the Day: Casualty

BY SEAMUS HEANEY

I   

He would drink by himself   

And raise a weathered thumb   

Towards the high shelf,   

Calling another rum   

And blackcurrant, without   

Having to raise his voice,   

Or order a quick stout   

By a lifting of the eyes   

And a discreet dumb-show   

Of pulling off the top;   

At closing time would go   

In waders and peaked cap   

Into the showery dark,   

A dole-kept breadwinner   

But a natural for work.   

I loved his whole manner,   

Sure-footed but too sly,   

His deadpan sidling tact,   

His fisherman's quick eye   

And turned observant back.   

Incomprehensible   

To him, my other life.   

Sometimes, on the high stool,   

Too busy with his knife   

At a tobacco plug   

And not meeting my eye,   

In the pause after a slug   

He mentioned poetry.   

We would be on our own   

And, always politic   

And shy of condescension,   

I would manage by some trick   

To switch the talk to eels   

Or lore of the horse and cart   

Or the Provisionals.   

But my tentative art   

His turned back watches too:   

He was blown to bits   

Out drinking in a curfew   

Others obeyed, three nights   

After they shot dead   

The thirteen men in Derry.   

PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,   

BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday   

Everyone held   

His breath and trembled.   

                   II   

It was a day of cold   

Raw silence, wind-blown   

surplice and soutane:   

Rained-on, flower-laden   

Coffin after coffin   

Seemed to float from the door   

Of the packed cathedral   

Like blossoms on slow water.   

The common funeral   

Unrolled its swaddling band,   

Lapping, tightening   

Till we were braced and bound   

Like brothers in a ring.   

But he would not be held   

At home by his own crowd   

Whatever threats were phoned,   

Whatever black flags waved.   

I see him as he turned   

In that bombed offending place,   

Remorse fused with terror   

In his still knowable face,   

His cornered outfaced stare   

Blinding in the flash.   

He had gone miles away   

For he drank like a fish   

Nightly, naturally   

Swimming towards the lure   

Of warm lit-up places,   

The blurred mesh and murmur   

Drifting among glasses   

In the gregarious smoke.   

How culpable was he   

That last night when he broke   

Our tribe's complicity?   

'Now, you're supposed to be   

An educated man,'   

I hear him say. 'Puzzle me   

The right answer to that one.'

                   III   

I missed his funeral,   

Those quiet walkers   

And sideways talkers   

Shoaling out of his lane   

To the respectable   

Purring of the hearse...   

They move in equal pace   

With the habitual   

Slow consolation   

Of a dawdling engine,   

The line lifted, hand   

Over fist, cold sunshine   

On the water, the land   

Banked under fog: that morning   

I was taken in his boat,   

The Screw purling, turning   

Indolent fathoms white,   

I tasted freedom with him.   

To get out early, haul   

Steadily off the bottom,   

Dispraise the catch, and smile   

As you find a rhythm   

Working you, slow mile by mile,   

Into your proper haunt   

Somewhere, well out, beyond...   

Dawn-sniffing revenant,   

Plodder through midnight rain,   

Question me again.

Seamus Heaney, "Casualty" from Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996. Copyright © 1998 by Seamus Heaney. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, www.fsgbooks.com. All rights reserved.