Seamus Heaney


Anything Can Happen 
  
Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter 
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head 
Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now 
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses 
  
Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth 
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx, 
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself. 
Anything can happen, the tallest towers 
  
Be overturned, those in high places daunted, 
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune 
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one, 
Setting it down bleeding on the next. 
  
Ground gives. The heaven’s weight 
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid. 
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right. 

Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away. 

John Ashbery

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