Seamus Heaney (1939 - 2013)

There will be countless words written and spoken about the passing of the poet Seamus Heaney. When I heard the news I immediately reached for my copy of his collection Opened Ground: Poems 1966 - 1996. 

First thoughts are often best thoughts, and so my tribute to this fine poet is here:

In Opened Ground 

The folded tear of paper
white and blank as sky
between the sheets
of Opened Ground

I must have placed it there
to mark some verse
a special place
where words intended much

more than they said
as words are like to do
and if you ask me
for those words

then I will say to you
this is The Grauballe Man

Grauballe Man image used with due acknowledgement
and grateful thanks to Malene Thyssen (Wiki Commons)