Tilting the World: Seamus Heaney's Poem "Miracle"

The essay examines Seamus Heaney’s poem “Miracle”, from his last collection Human Chain. This poem concerns the miraculous healing of the man with palsy, as described in the Gospels of St Luke and St Mark. The focus, however, is neither on the divine healer nor on the invalid, but on those who helped the sick man reach Jesus, by lowering him through a skylight in the roof. It can be considered an expression of gratitude to all those who helped the poet himself, after his debilitating stroke in 2006. The essay connects “Miracle” with other poems in which Heaney uses the imagery of “tilting” and that of opened roofs in order to express a renewed sense of wonder.