Poem for February: The Railway Children by Seamus Heaney

           THE RAILWAY CHILDREN

                by Seamus Heaney

         When we climbed the slopes of the cutting
         We were eye-level with the white cups
         Of the telegraph poles and the sizzling wires.

     Like lovely freehand they curved for miles
     East and miles west beyond us, sagging
     Under their burden of swallows.

    We were small and thought we knew nothing
    Worth knowing. We thought words travelled the wires

    In the shiny pouches of raindrops

    Each one seeded full with the light
    Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves
    So infinitesimally scaled

    We could stream through the eye of a needle.

 

    From Wintering Out

    Publisher: Faber & Faber, 1972

 

Seamus Heaney (1939 – 2013) 'was an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize of Literature.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamus_Heaney

Lines on 'The Railway Children' by Seamus Heaney

When I recite this poem to myself,

my spirits are raised with the serenity

it radiates. Looking back to his childhood

the poet is again filled with wonder

at the world a raindrop can contain,

full of light, reflecting a tiny image

of the child itself, an intimation

of insignificance and yet unthought of

potential springing from its small size.

Gudrun Rogge-Wiest, January 2017