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CASUALTY / 2829
40 Others obeyed, three nights After they shot dead The thirteen men in Derry. PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said, ROGSIDE NIL.3 That Wednesday
45 Everybody held His breath and trembled.
2
It was a day of cold Raw silence, wind-blown Surplice and soutane:4
50 Rained-on, flower-laden Coffin after coffin Seemed to float from the door Of the packed cathedral Like blossoms on slow water.
55 The common funeral Unrolled its swaddling band,5 Lapping, tightening Till we were braced and bound Like brothers in a ring.
60 Rut he would not be held At home by his own crowd Whatever threats were phoned, Whatever black flags waved. I see him as he turned
65 In that bombed offending place, Remorse fused with terror In his still knowable face, His cornered outfaced stare Blinding in the flash.
70 He had gone miles away For he drank like a fish Nightly, naturally Swimming towards the lure Of warm lit-up places,
75 The blurred mesh and murmur Drifting among glasses In the gregarious smoke. How culpable was he That last night when he broke
so Our tribe's complicity?6 'Now you're supposed to be An educated man,'
3. This graffito records?in the form of a soccer uary 30, 1972. match score?that the British Army's Parachute 4. Vestments worn by Roman Catholic priests. Regiment had killed thirteen people; the Roman 5. Long cloth in which babies were once wrapped Catholic inhabitants of Derry's Bogside district, to restrain and warm them. none. The IRA bombing occurred after the killing 6. The Roman Catholic community's agreement of Catholic demonstrators on Bloody Sunday, Jan-to obey the curfew (of lines 39^10).
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283 0 / SEAMUS HEANEY
I hear him say. 'Puzzle me The right answer to that one.'
3
85 I missed his funeral, Those quiet walkers And sideways talkers Shoaling out of his lane To the respectable
90 Purring of the hearse . . . They move in equal pace With the habitual Slow consolation Of a dawdling engine,
95 The line lifted, hand Over fist, cold sunshine On the water, the land Banked under fog: that morning I was taken in his boat,
IOO The screw0 purling, turning propellor Indolent fathoms white, I tasted freedom with him. To get out early, haul Steadily off the bottom, 105 Dispraise the catch, and smile As you find a rhythm Working you, slow mile by mile, Into your proper haunt Somewhere, well out, beyond . . .
I IO Dawn-sniffing revenant,7 Plodder through midnight rain, Question me again.
1979
The Skunk
Up, black, striped and damasked like the chasuble1 At a funeral mass, the skunk's tail Paraded the skunk. Night after night I expected her like a visitor.
5 The refrigerator whinnied into silence. My desk light softened beyond the verandah. Small oranges loomed in the orange tree. I began to be tense as a voyeur.
7. One returned from the dead. brating Mass, its color regulated by the feast of the 1. Sleeveless vestment worn by the priest cele-day. 'Damasked': woven with elaborate designs.
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STATION ISLAND / 283 1
After eleven years I was composing
10 Love-letters again, broaching the word 'wife' Like a stored cask, as if its slender vowel Had mutated into the night earth and air
Of California. The beautiful, useless Tang of eucalyptus spelt your absence. 15 The aftermath of a mouthful of wine Was like inhaling you off a cold pillow.
And there she was, the intent and glamorous, Ordinary, mysterious skunk, Mythologized, demythologized,
20 Snuffing the boards five feet beyond me.
It all came back to me last night, stirred By the sootfall of your things at bedtime, Your head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer For the black plunge-line nightdress.
1979
From Station Island1
