"Today all Ireland is weeping
But, as usual
No one is listening".
The pain of ancestral hurt
Enforced a sudden despair
When the news came on the radio.
Goodnight sweet Prince,
Frail memory cannot invoke you,
Silence now claims it`s due.
Your poems are rough hewn monuments
Slowly remade by the weather;
The cut throat winds of Ulster.
Even raw granite decays,
Worn down by frost and hail blast;
Fierce rivulets of melt-water.
What hope for human words
To survive the tumult of centuries
However deep the carving?
We can only pray, I suppose,
To hone the voice of our culture
Now that our teacher has left us.
We stood stone still by the radio
Hearing but not believing;
Bereft like orphaned children.
We must now truly keep the faith,
Honour his words of devotion
Whispered on the brink of life,
"Do not be afraid".
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
31st. August, - 26th. October 2013.
This poem was started in County Fermanagh on the day that Seamus Heaney died and completed at The Rose Theatre Bankside two months later. The last line of the poem is a translation into English of the last words of the Great Poet.
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