b"A nd sometime make the time to drive out westInto County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,In September or October, when the windAnd the light are working off each otherSo that the ocean on one side is wildWith foam and glitter, and inland among stonesThe surface of a slate-grey lake is litBy the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,Their fully grown headstrong-looking headsTucked or cresting or busy underwater.Useless to think you'll park and capture itMore thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,A hurry through which known and strange things pass As big soft buffetings come at the car sidewaysAnd catch the heart off guard and blow it open.Postscriptby Seamus Heaney, From THE SPIRIT LEVEL (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996)connect 2012 | 26"