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Today, on November 21st, 2009, the site contains 196 poets, 8,692 poems and 7,656 comments.
Seamus Heaney - Exposure

It is December in Wicklow:
Alders dripping, birches
Inheriting the last light,
The ash tree cold to look at.

A comet that was lost
Should be visible at sunset,
Those million tons of light
Like a glimmer of haws and rose-hips,

And I sometimes see a falling star.
If I could come on meteorite!
Instead I walk through damp leaves,
Husks, the spent flukes of autumn,

Imagining a hero
On some muddy compound,
His gift like a slingstone
Whirled for the desperate.

How did I end up like this?
I often think of my friends'
Beautiful prismatic counselling
And the anvil brains of some who hate me

As I sit weighing and weighing
My responsible tristia.
For what? For the ear? For the people?
For what is said behind-backs?

Rain comes down through the alders,
Its low conductive voices
Mutter about let-downs and erosions
And yet each drop recalls

The diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner émigré, grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerne

Escaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;

Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet's pulsing rose. 

Added: on October 2nd, 2009 at 7:38 AM | Viewed: 2113 times | Comments (1)


Exposure - Comments and Information

Poet: Seamus Heaney
Poem: Exposure

Comment 1 of 1, added on October 2nd, 2009 at 7:38 AM.

i read this poem , theme of this poem is so ambiguous although after reading this poem we can say that this poem is about the unsatisfactoriness of modern man regarding to his existance in the society and one of the most important elements of this poem is loss of identity .......HOW DID I END UP LIKE THIS? i think he wants to say may be i ,ll destroy like a comet.......THE DIAMOND ABSOLOUTES ,re his good memories in further lines he is giving self analysis....people and things gone but memories will remains.sp i can ysay exposure is abt the unsatisfactoriness of his own life.

maryam sabir from Pakistan

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