Seamus Heaney
In this powerful poem about human connection, Heaney addresses the work of AID workers delivering food to those in need. He ends the poem with a reference to the final letting go which all of us will experience – our own deaths – regardless of where we are in the chain of humanity.
HUMAN CHAINAdvertisements Share this:For Terence Brown
Seeing the bags of meal passed hand to hand
In close-up by the aid workers, and soldiers
Firing over the mob, I was braced againWith a grip on two sack corners,
Two packed wads of grain I’d worked to lugs
To give me purchase, ready for the heave –The eye-to-eye, one-two, one-two upswing
On to the trailer, then the stoop and drag and drain
Of the next lift. Nothing surpassedThat quick unburdening, back break’s truest payback,
A letting go which will not come again.
Or it will, once. And for all.Seamus Heaney
