day 04 - a song that makes you sad

Mid-Term Break

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Seamus Heaney

Aftur, dáið barn, en að þessu sinni tekst að halda tilfinningaseminni frá. Og græða þannig helling af áhrifamætti. Nískuleg notkun á rími er snilldarleg. Heaney er frábær og heppinn með íslenskan þýðanda í Karli Guðmyndssyni. Held hann hafi samt ekki þýtt þetta ljóð. Lesið þá báða í drasl.


Um feisbúkk gengur leikurinn "30 Day Song Challenge", þar sem þú átt að segja frá eða setja inn, lag eftir ákveðinni forskrift daglega. Mér fannst þetta skemmtilegt, en langaði að hugsa frekar um ljóð. Og þau rúmast ekki í feisbúkkstatusum svo ég ákvað að hafa þau hér og krækja í færslurnar úr feisbúkkinu mínu. PS: ljóð eru skemmtileg. Líka þegar þau eru leiðinleg.