I struggled with the poetry of Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) until I listened to a series of radio programmes on his poetry. https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2024/02/25/getting-closer-and-closer-to-the-magic-of-the-poetry-of-seamus-heaney/  His poems have most impact when read by him. “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland presented a poetic problem to Heaney, a Catholic but also the country’s leading poet, even voice. Could he come up with  poems that captured the pain but could also heal? He was criticised for poems that spoke too obliquely about the Troubles. This poem is a response. It’s not one of his best poems, but it captures the pain of the Troubles and does offer hope, although it’s hesitant hope.

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.