EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT

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The Belfast, Northern Ireland poet Derek Mahon died yesterday at 78, leaving behind the following poem as a much needed assurance in these frightening times. The poem is new to me, but well-known among his admirers in the U.K. and elsewhere. I only ask that you note the musicality of the “unbidden/hidden” rhyme, the latter word hiding in plain sight a half-line ahead of the former.

Everything is Going to be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

By Derek Mahon

"File:Derek Mahon in Moscow.JPG" by Marina Masinova is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0