for T. P. Flanagan <br /> <br />We have no prairies <br />To slice a big sun at evening-- <br />Everywhere the eye concedes to <br />Encrouching horizon, <br /> <br />Is wooed into the cyclops' eye <br />Of a tarn. Our unfenced country <br />Is bog that keeps crusting <br />Between the sights of the sun. <br /> <br />They've taken the skeleton <br />Of the Great Irish Elk <br />Out of the peat, set it up <br />An astounding crate full of air. <br /> <br />Butter sunk under <br />More than a hundred years <br />Was recovered salty and white. <br />The ground itself is kind, black butter <br /> <br />Melting and opening underfoot, <br />Missing its last definition <br />By millions of years. <br />They'll never dig coal here, <br /> <br />Only the waterlogged trunks <br />Of great firs, soft as pulp. <br />Our pioneers keep striking <br />Inwards and downwards, <br /> <br />Every layer they strip <br />Seems camped on before. <br />The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage. <br />The wet centre is bottomless.<br /><br />Seamus Heaney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bogland/
