Seamus Heaney has died.  Our Poetry Editor, Ira Maine had this to say:
I woke this morning and …. Seamus Heaney had died. I’ve been reading the obits quietly and getting used to the idea, Still it’s a bit of a shock. Life insists on reminding us that however much we attempt to convince ourselves to the contrary, decay keeps nibbling away.
Death, unfortunately, is not intimidated by reputation. Cool as a cucumber, unflinching, without discrimination, it  wipes us all off the face of the earth. Luckily, Heaney’s left us something that Death can’t kill; his splendid poetry. I am very grateful to him for this gift.

When asked to put forward a poem by which we can celebrate Heaney, Ira had no hesitation in saying “Death of a Naturalist”, of which he had this to say:
This was the first Heaney poem I ever encountered.  It was in London in the 1960’s. This was the title of both the poem and his first book of poetry.
I felt an immediate affinity with the poet.  It is difficult to put a finger on quite why I felt this affinity but the fact that he was talking about wet drainage ditches, dripping branches and frogspawn, things I understood, rather than beaten gold and Byzantium, might furnish a clue.
And the child-like fright on discovering that lovely, lovely frogspawn and tadpoles turn horrifyingly into great green and croaking, pulsating bullfrogs is quite enough to put anyone off a career as a Naturalist!

What a fine beginning, what an auspicious start!

Death Of A Naturalist

All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

Seamus Heaney

And this is Alan Kohler’s pick

Blackberry-Picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.

Seamus Heaney