The tightness and the nilness round that space <br />when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect <br />its make and number and, as one bends his face <br /> <br />towards your window, you catch sight of more <br />on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent <br />down cradled guns that hold you under cover <br /> <br />and everything is pure interrogation <br />until a rifle motions and you move <br />with guarded unconcerned acceleration— <br /> <br />a little emptier, a little spent <br />as always by that quiver in the self, <br />subjugated, yes, and obedient. <br /> <br />So you drive on to the frontier of writing <br />where it happens again. The guns on tripods; <br />the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating <br /> <br />data about you, waiting for the squawk <br />of clearance; the marksman training down <br />out of the sun upon you like a hawk. <br /> <br />And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed, <br />as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall <br />on the black current of a tarmac road <br /> <br />past armor-plated vehicles, out between <br />the posted soldiers flowing and receding <br />like tree shadows into the polished windscreen.<br /><br />Seamus Heaney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/from-the-frontier-of-writing/
