When Hope and History Rhyme

Today I share a poem that I read this week and found it worth sharing with you. I’m learning to sit with poetry more. To let the deeper meaning unfold as I create stillness and reflect. That’s your invitation today — to read and sit with The Cure of Troy.

The poem was written by Seamus Heaney and is an adaptation of Sophocles' play, Philoctetes. He published it in 1991 during a time when there was much trouble in Northern Ireland. He was also thinking about Nelson Mandela who after 27 years of unjust imprisonment, faced the daunting task of bringing hope to the broken and divided nation of South Africa.

When I think of injustice, so many of our losses are unjust. We say things like: “Why me?” “The system failed our family!” “This is so unfair to lose this person who had so much more life to live.” “How could this happen to us?”

As you read the poem, see what surfaces for you. Sit with the poem and see what shows up. There is no one way to understand or interpret this poem.

The Cure at Troy

(a selection of verses, written by Seamus Heaney)

Human beings suffer

They torture one another,

They get hurt and get hard.

No poem or play or song

Can fully right a wrong

Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols

Beat on their bars together.

A hunger-striker’s father

Stands in the graveyard dumb.

The police widow in veils

Faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don’t hope

On this side of the grave…

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that a further shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracles

And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:

The utter, self-revealing

Double-take of feeling.

If there’s fire on the mountain

Or lightning and storm

And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing

The outcry and the birth-cry

Of new life at its term.

Concluding Thoughts

The line that grabbed hold of me was, “And hope and history rhyme.”

Those words speak of the hopefulness we can hold on to when suffering. Hope while grieving is so important. It can take a while but when you… “Believe that a further shore is reachable from here,” it helps you keep going.

Things don’t always turn out the way we want them to but when we look for miracles and believe for healing, it opens up the door of possibilities.

What line stands out for you and what does it say to you?