Hope. Belief.

by | Feb 11, 2025 | Deep Thoughts, Music, Writing | 0 comments

This was published in 1991. Seems appropriate for our times.

THE CURE OF TROY – by Seamus Heaney

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 or 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 a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the 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.

It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

We could use some rhyme time right about now.

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 a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

I do believe that a further shore is reachable from here. Especially if we all join hands.

Hearing Seamus read his poem is like music. And here’s a bit more musical hope:

That nothing grows on, but time still goes on
Through each laugh of misery

Everybody’s gotta hold on hope
It’s the last thing that’s holding me

“Hold On Hope” by Guided by Voices

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