from The Cure at Troy
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 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 a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
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.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
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3 comments:
Dear One Heart Dancing,
I read your post a few times and then I remembered the darkness of the not too distant past, the nightly TV news of the sufferings, the hate, the blasts, the innocents, the slogans, the marches, and all that was not "just" and none of it I hoped would continue to "rhyme" in that "history" that passed.
These days I am still saddened to watch and read the news of that what is not "just". Everyday and for many years we continuously hear the news ringing out aloud, with all the painful sounds. How I do hope and wish that "history" would stop making the same repeats of its dark and undesirable events.
Who could ever want to hear another "history rhyme"!?
MilongaCat.
MilongaCat:
You have given me a new way to look at this poem. I have been reading it for years, and always thought the "hope and history rhyme" was the hope for peace, that despite all that we do to each other in the name of justice, we can always hope for the day peace will rise.
In that sense, the lesson from the Irish peace is the same as that from the South African peace --that no matter how we mistreat one another, it is possible to come to peace.
Given the US war in Iraq, peace is foremost in my mind, as it is in the minds of many. So I read the poem through that lens.
Now, reading the poem from your perspective, it is much less a simple promise of peace and a much darker vision. I think you rightly see the poet's intent.
I see what goes on in Haiti, and I wonder, What will it take for the people there to get justice? History (and many religions) tell us not to hope on this side of the grave but to put all our hope in some ephemeral future.
But...
Several months ago, a minister who is very involved in racial justice in the US spoke about peace. He is aligned with a church that calls itself a "just peace" church, which means that peace never exists in the absence of social justice -- that the lack of violence under oppressive conditions is not actually peace.
Someone in the audience challenged this minister: Isn't your God the god of peace? And the minister said, No, it is the God of love.
Some people would use a sentence like that to justify their violence. Others, like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King, would say that hope can rise on a tide of well-disciplined, intentional peace, and that's the tide that changes the course of history.
MilongaCat, this is your gift: deeper thoughts and insights. I am glad you are in the world.
JFK once said... if we can not end our differences... at least we can make the world safe for diversity...
justice... isn't about inflicting revenge...
justice... isn't about dominating your opponent...
justice... doesn't rise up to support your cause...
justice comes... in that all to rare time... when you look in the battle weary face of another... and both ask... why?
we feed our children...
we care for families...
and friends...
yes...
we are different...
does that make one of us wrong?
do we need to inflict the damage...
must it roll thorough another generation...
can we make a world for that new born child...
where the peace we hope for...
rhymes with the history that child has yet to live...
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