Buried Maidens

for SeamusHeaney 1939-2013 A flap of wings and agitated rustlings in the darkness jar forth protective prayers for mice and voles and winks of thought that barely lit on the page of day before the sky’s hunger pitched down-devouring as if commissioned by some cleansing spirit to sweep away all evidence that these girls had lived, had sipped dew from buds or feasted on a wind-born grain. Doggedly elders buried bones in shale, whispering, “Thus we will hide this history.” But Seamus’s spade dug deep into the mystery and taught us how to read the twisting motives in our own soft guts by learning how to dig.