Seamus the Dog & Seamus the Poet

celebratory poem

Seamus the Dog & Seamus the Poet

 

Bill Clinton called his dog Seamus

After his friend and inspiration

Seamus Heaney

Because, as he charmingly put it,

‘Dog is man’s best friend.’

Seamus won the Nobel prize in’95

Because he believed in love;

“Be good in every sense”

Was his motto.

He never dug for the root of badness

But rather shone a light

On the vagaries of the individual soul,

The uniqueness of every mind

And the common emotions we all feel;

The bind of humanity.

 

Though it’s not cold tonight

I’ll burn a sod or two

Of my best black clods of turf,

Sods I toiled for

Between the Partry hills and Croagh Patrick,

Like Shamuses’ grandfather toiled

On Toners bog

So Seamus the poet will know

I read him too:

 

 

And any man of this fair land

Who sees my peat smoke rising

Of a mild night

Will know it’s no cold I’m banishing

But  an ancient energy I’m releasing

In celebration of a man

That could paint the soul of the soil

As vivid as the Heart of man

In a few effectively wrought lines.