A Kite for Michael and Christopher by Seamus Heaney

A Kite for Michael and Christopher

 

All through that Sunday afternoon

A kite flew above Sunday,

a tightened drumhead, an armful of blow chaff.

 

I’d seen it grey and slippy in the making,

I’d tapped it when it dried out white and stiff,

I’d tied the bows of the newspaper

along its six-foot tail.

 

But now it was far up like a small black lark

and now it dragged as if the bellied string

were a wet rope hauled upon

to life a shoal.

 

My friend says that the human soul

is about the weight of a snipe

yet the soul at anchor there,

the string that sags and ascends,

weigh like a furrow assumed into the heavens.

 

Before the kite plunges down into the wood

and this line goes useless

take in your two hands, boys, and feel

the strumming, rooted, long-tailed pull of grief.

You were born fit for it.

Stand here in front of me

and take the strain.