Anything Can Happen Poem by Seamus Heaney

Anything Can Happen

Rating: 4.7


Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleeding on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven's weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

Thursday, February 19, 2015
Topic(s) of this poem: carpe diem
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Chinedu Dike 18 November 2021

A work of an intricate mind. Thanks for sharing and do remain enriched.....

0 0 Reply
Geeta Radhakrishna Menon 17 November 2021

Anything can happen. Nothing is certain in this universe. A thought provoking poem......5 stars

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Bill Wright 03 September 2016

Not too sure what to make of this one. Was it prompted by a violent storm perhaps?

1 1 Reply
Bill Wright 28 November 2018

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense, helps me to put the poem in context.

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Jonathan Shaw 27 November 2018

It's a response to the destruction of the world Trade centre in September 2011

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READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney

Castledàwson, County Londonderry
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