Drifting Off - Seamus Heaney

Birds Lifting (M.A. Reilly, 2011)

Drifting Off

 - Seamus Heaney

The guttersnipe and the albatross

gliding for days without a single wingbeat

were equally beyond me.

I yearned for the gannet's strike,

the unbegrudging concentration

of the heron.

In the camaraderie of rookeries,

in the spiteful vigilance of colonies

I was at home.

I learned to distrust

the allure of the cuckoo

and the gossip of starlings,

kept faith with doughty bullfinches,

leveled my wit too often

to the small-minded wren

and too often caved in

to the pathos of waterhens

and panicky corncrakes.

I gave much credence to stragglers,

overrated the composure of blackbirds

and the folklore of magpies.

But when goldfinch or kingfisher rent

the veil of the usual,

pinions whispered and braced

as I stooped, unwieldy

and brimming,

my spurs at the ready.

Author Notes

from Sweeney Redivivus

from "Station Island" (1984