Well, Go Upstairs and Write Something

 

I hope it’s true, this story

We were told by the poet:

There was a christening,

All the family there

They arrived, and it was only

Upon entry that these two understood

That everyone had brought

A gift but, sigh, them

They had nothing but attendance,

Which maybe should have

Been enough

But she leaned into him

And said, Well, go upstairs

And write something!

He did, a lyric for a child just

Entering the world with a

Name and little else

But the gifts and now some

Brand-new words

 

C L Couch

 

 

(Seamus Heaney in a talk at school, given in the late eighties)

 

Picture of the Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney at the University College Dublin, February 11, 2009.

Sean O’Connor, cropped by Sabahrat – File:Seamus Heaney.jpg