Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Those overlooked regarded

Phillippe Petit,
Anything Can Happen

After Horace, Odes, I, 34

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightning? Well just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky.. It shook the earth
and the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
the winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleading on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven's weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle lid.
Capstones shift. Nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

 by Seamus Heaney
at

4 comments:

  1. UnknownSeptember 11, 2013 at 12:05 PM

    and "nothing resettles right" - truer words never spoken

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maggie MaySeptember 11, 2013 at 1:28 PM

    I watched that strange and wonderful movie with Ed and were both so moved.

    The poem is perfect. I had goosebumps at
    'anything can happen, the tallest towers'
    i love that the line ends there.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Christy ShakeSeptember 12, 2013 at 5:52 AM

    fuck.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Steve ReedSeptember 13, 2013 at 11:04 AM

    Good Lord. Such genius. Such a loss.

    ReplyDelete