Diamond Level

Seamus Heaney Diamond Level - an image from "Keeping Going"

The poem reads

Part-time reservist, toting his lunch-box.

A car came slow down Castle Street, made the halt,

Crossed the Diamond, slowed again and stopped

Level with him, although it was not his lift.

and continues tragically and very graphically.

This was an event in March 1977 in the Bellaghy diamond (village centre) recalled by Heaney in “Keeping Going”. The young man was awaiting his lift to work. His fourteen year old son was a witness. The tarred strip below the whitewashed wall continues a whitewash thread in the poem. The poem is in The Spirit Level Faber & Faber Limited 1996.

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