A Word From Seamus Heaney

In this tumultuous election season, we need a word from the wise Seamus Heaney to get some perspective on all the insanity. And what better place than “From the Republic of Conscience?”

From the Republic of Conscience 

by Seamus Heaney
At immigration, the clerk was an old man

who produced a wallet from his homespun coat

and showed me a photograph of my grandfather.
The woman in customs asked me to declare

the words of our traditional cures and charms

to heal dumbness and avert the evil eye.
No porters. No interpreter. No taxi.

You carried your own burden and very soon

your symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared.
Fog is a dreaded omen there but lightning

spells universal good and parents hang

swaddled infants in trees during thunderstorms.
Salt is their precious mineral. And seashells

are held to the ear during births and funerals.

The base of all inks and pigments is seawater.
Their sacred symbol is a stylized boat.

The sail is an ear, the mast a sloping pen,

the hull a mouth-shape, the keel an open eye.
At their inauguration, public leaders

must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep

to atone for their presumption to hold office –
and to affirm their faith that all life sprang

from salt in tears which the sky-god wept

after he dreamt his solitude was endless.
I came back from that frugal republic

with my two arms the one length, the customs

woman having insisted my allowance was myself.
The old man rose and gazed into my face

and said that was official recognition

that I was now a dual citizen.
He therefore desired me when I got home

to consider myself a representative

and to speak on their behalf in my own tongue.
Their embassies, he said, were everywhere

but operated independently

and no ambassador would ever be relieved.

Review in Singapore Poetry

My review of And the Walls Come Crumbling Down by Tania De Rozario, published by Math Paper Press, is up on Singapore Poetry, the premier poetry website in Singapore. Its founder and editor, Jee Leong Koh, is a fine poet in his own right, and has initiated an exchange of reviews and books between Singapore and the United States (where he now lives in New York). It’s a fascinating idea and a quick look at the site will tell you the high quality of literature coming out of Singapore.

De Rozario’s book is a fictionalized memoir, written in a style that reveals her skill as a poet and quite memorable. I learned much from her about the consequences of Singapore’s social experiment, and also about the struggles of the LGBT community there, one that illuminates the struggle for freedom and love for all humans. Please check it out!

3 Poems in Beautiful Peacock Journal

Today three of my poems are in the internet’s most beautiful new website, Peacock Journal. There you’ll find beautiful poetry, fiction, nonfiction, artwork, and photography in an unusually striking way. Don’t miss it! Huge thanks to the editors, W.F. Lantry and Kathleen Fitzpatrick, for including my poetry among such fine work.