AT THE WELLHEAD Your songs, when you sing them with your two eyes closed As you always do, are like a local road We've known every turn of in the past -- That midge-veiled, high-hedged side-road where you stood Looking and listening until a car Would come and go and leave you lonelier Than you had been to begin with. So, sing on, Dear shut-eyed one, dear far-voiced veteran, Sing yourself to where the singing comes from, Ardent and cut off like our blind neighbour Who played the piano all day in her bedroom. Her notes came out to us like hoisted water Ravelling off a bucket at the wellhead Where next thing we'd be listening, hushed and awkward. That blind-from-birth, sweet-voiced, withdrawn musician Was like a silver vein in heavy clay. Night water glittering in the light of day. But also just our neighbour, Rosie Keenan. She touched our cheeks. She let us touch her braille In books like books wallpaper patterns come in. Her hands were active and her eyes were full Of open darkness and a watery shine. She knew us by our voices. She'd say she 'saw' Whoever or whatever. Being with her Was intimate and helpful, like a cure You didn't notice happening. When I read A poem with Keenan's well in it, she said, 'I can see the sky at the bottom of it now.' -- Seamus HEANEY, b. 1939 Co. Derry