[Worship] A lovely poem by Seamus Heaney

[Peg Clifford]

in honor of Nelson Mandela

https://www.sstte.org/poetry-corner/chorus-from-the-cure-of-troy-by-seamus-heaney

"Chorus from 'The Cure of Troy'" by Seamus Heaney
<https://www.sstte.org/poetry-corner/chorus-from-the-cure-of-troy-by-seamus-heaney>

11/21/2014

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Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.


The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.


History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.


So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.


Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.




*"But if thought corrupts language, language can *
*also corrupt thought."   *     George Orwell
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