St Kevin and the Blackbird (1996)And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird.The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, insideHis cell, but the cell is narrow, soOne turned-up palm is out the window, stiffAs a crossbeam, when a blackbird landsAnd lays in it and settles down to nest.Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tuckedNeat head and claws and, finding himself linkedInto the network of eternal life,Is moved to pity: now he must hold his handLike a branch out in the sun and rain for weeksUntil the young are hatched and fledged and flown.*And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow,Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?Self-forgetful or in agony all the timeFrom the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearthCrept up through him? Is there distance in his head?Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river,'To labour and not to seek reward,' he prays,A prayer his body makes entirelyFor he has forgotten self, forgotten birdAnd on the riverbank forgotten the river's name. —Seamus Heaney 

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