IN MEMORIAM: ROBERT FITZGERALD
Seamus Heaney
The socket of each axhead like the squared
Doorway to a megalithic tomb
With its slabbed passage that keeps opening forward
To face another corbeled stone-faced door
That opens on a third. There is no last door,
Just a threshold stone, stone jambs, stone crossbeam
Repeating enter, enter, enter, enter,
Lintel and upright fly past in the dark.
After the bowstring sang a swallow's note
The arrow whose migration is its mark
Leaves a whispered breath in every socket.
The great test is over, while the gut's still humming,
This time it travels out of all knowing
Perfectly aimed towards the vacant center.