THE PITCHFORK Of all implements, the pitchfork was the one That came near to an imagined perfection: When he tightened his raised hand and aimed with it, It felt like a javelin, accurate and light. So whether he played the warrior or the athlete Or worked in earnest in the chaff and sweat, He loved its grain of tapering, dark-flecked ash Grown satiny from its own natural polish. Riveted steel, turned timber, burnish, grain, Smoothness, straightness, roundness, length and sheen. Sweat-cured, sharpened, balanced, tested, fitted. The springiness, the clip and dart of it. And then when he thought of probes that reached the farthest, He would see the shaft of a pitchfork sailing past Evenly, imperturbably through space, Its prongs starlit and absolutely soundless -- But has learned at last to follow that simple lead Past its own aim, out to an other side Where perfection - or nearness to it - is imagined Not in the aiming but the opening hand. -- Seamus Heaney, born 1939, Mossbawn, Co. Derry