Soul Strut

Drop image/file

I first read this poem in high school and have never forgotten it. 
	 
	Seamus Heaney 
	 
	The Early Purges 
	 
	I was six when I first saw kittens drown. 
	Don Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits', 
	Into a bucket; a frail metal sound, 
	 
	Soft paws scraping like mad. But their tiny din 
	Was soon soused. They were slung on the snout 
	Of the pump and the water pumped in. 
	 
	'Sure isn't it better for them now?' Dan said. 
	Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluiced 
	Them out on the dunghill, glossy and dead. 
	 
	Suddenly frightened, for days I sadly hung 
	Round the yard, watching the three sogged remains 
	Turn mealy and crisp as old summer dung 
	 
	Until I forgot them. But the fear came back 
	When Dan trapped big rats, snared rabbits, shot crows 
	Or, with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks. 
	 
	Still, living displaces false sentiments 
	And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown, 
	I just shrug, 'Bloody pups'. It makes sense: 
	 
	'Prevention of cruelty' talk cuts ice in town 
	Where they consider death unnatural 
	But on well-run farms pests have to be kept down.

Cancel

Community