Timorous or bold are the first three words of Seamus Heaney’s famous (to me) ‘Elegy’ for Robert Lowell. They’ve been on my mind a lot recently. The strange thing is, I had remembered them as coming at the end, in a great flourish of ‘lift-off and surprise’, which is another of Heaney’s phrases, this time from an essay, also about Lowell. But no. Memory is not what it was (was it ever?). I wonder if this is due to the apparent lunacy of the moment we are living through. I also wonder if this is, in part, self-inflicted, arising from my need to live it, as Derek Mahon would say, bomb by bomb, lie by insult by resignation by election victory. There isn’t a person I’ve spoken to in the last few weeks who hasn’t at some point told me said they just need to step away for a few days in order to stay sane.
Which takes me back to the poem. Timorous. Or bold. If I temporarily check myself out, does that make me the former or the latter? Seamus, I want to say, is it always a binary choice? He said once, about his early poem ‘Digging’, that it had something of the gunslinger about it, and for all his craft and guile I think it’s a trait he could never quite bury. (Personally, I don’t mind this in a poem. I was, after all, brought up in the Brethren.) ‘Elegy’ posseses this same quality: it ends with the words ”I’ll pray for you.” So I’ll ask again: can’t I be both? Can some of us not be both?
Without wanting to reduce the poem to a gloss on current affairs (the lines began nagging at me several weeks ago), the lines bring to mind certain figures in public life who I wish had been less afraid of making mistakes – and others who should have acted more boldly. Intellectually, I know we don’t (or shouldn’t) come to poems for answers. That’s not what they’re designed for. And if they’re to be great, let alone any good, they need to have no designs on us at all. So I wonder. What ‘will have been [my] life’? On one level, quite a lot of getting up at 5.30am on a Sunday to write things like this. On another, equally useless, but even more time consuming, there is the writing of poems, which still persist, to paraphrase another of Heaney’s essays, in their inability to stop the tanks. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t occasionally wonder why I bother.
Lifesaving Poems 
Dear Anthony
Thanks for your latest blog. I always enjoy reading your thoughts, which are truthful and original. TV and social media aren’t usually either of those, which is why we need wordsmiths like yourself to craft ideas >words >poems which challenge and encourage us to be truthfully ourselves too.
Please don’t stop expressing your gifts, needed in these dismaying times more than ever. I keep you in my prayers.
Blessings Patricia H
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Thank you for saying so, Patricia. I appreciate this encouragement deeply. There are days when it’s hard to hold that line. I’m hoping to post again soon.
Blessings, Anthony
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I think that you are honouring the truth that in these strange times we are “holding the gap” but with a yawning sense of the chasm that may lie ahead.
I am distancing from all the noise of public discourse and intentionally concentrating on the beauty of nature and conversations with close people.
Keep close to your own insights and empathetic people.
Ann Hammond
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Thank you so much for saying so, Ann. I will endeavour to keep going. With appreciation, Anthony
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Thank You for continuing to bother, Anthony.
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Thank you, Marcus. Appreciate you saying so. A
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I love Digging
it captures so much, not least the generations, in work, cutting digging not stopping you can feel the labour… the graft the sweat and toil
Seamus what a man what a poet; maybe the inspiration was the perspiration to labour
thank you so much for your recent gift btw
(delayed acknowledgement due to no email or mob)
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Thank you, Murray. His work is a constant source of wonder and challenge to me. A
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I’m so glad you keep bothering, Anthony. I ask myself the same question about my writing and have done the same as regards the news. If artists stopped then the world would be a very dark place. We have to keep offering the alternative of joy and creativity. Thank you for sharing your vulnerability. Keep on keeping on!
all the best,
Ali
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Thank you for saying so, Ali. I hope to be here a bit longer shedding light through the cracks where I can. With best regards and thanks, Anthony
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I’m so glad you keep bothering, Anthony. I ask myself the same question about my writing and have done the same as regards the news. If artists stopped then the world would be a very dark place. We have to keep offering the alternative of joy and creativity. Thank you for sharing your vulnerability. Keep on keeping on!
all the best,
Ali
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That’s the question, isn’t it…why bother if it can’t stop anything. But what if, one day, one poem can? Thanks for writing this.
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Thank you for your kind comment, Rajani. Yes, that is the question, which takes a lifetime to answer. Good wishes, Anthony
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