THE RAIN STICK
for Beth and Rand
BY SEAMUS HEANEY
Upend the rain stick and what happens next
Is a music that you never would have known
To listen for. In a cactus stalk
Downpour, sluice-rush, spillage and backwash
Come flowing through. You stand there like a pipe
Being played by water, you shake it again lightly
And diminuendo runs through all its scales
Like a gutter stopping trickling. And now here comes
A sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves,
Then subtle little wets off grass and daisies;
Then glitter-drizzle, almost-breaths of air.
Upend the stick again. What happens next
Is undiminished for having happened once,
Twice, ten, a thousand times before.
Who cares if all the music that transpires
Is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus?
You are like a rich man entering heaven
Through the ear of a raindrop. Listen now again.
I celebrate the life of Seamus Heaney, a sublime human being and poet. It was a joy to be alive at a time when he was writing. Let's celebrate our own lives. "Who cares if all the music that transpires is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus?" Each one of our lives is undiminished for having been only one of many billions of lives on earth. Despite the grit and dirt, let's look at our lives and the lives of others and listen for the music. That is a fitting tribute. "Listen now again."
