Postcard written by Seamus Heaney to the friend of an associate. Dated: Madrid August 9th. Heaney writes a personal message along with five lines of verse under the title ‘Thanksgiving’:

“As if a shut fist / Flowered open / O my God, like some weed in a stream / I fear an uprooting / In the powerful heaps of the flood.”

In the summer of 1969, Seamus Heaney was in Madrid to fulfill the conditions of the Somerset Maugham award for ‘Death of a Naturalist.’  He meet with the recipient of this postcard & her friend Lillian at a social event. She was teaching English to Spanish students and had recently read with relish Heaney’s first collection of poems ‘Death of a Naturalist’ (1966). Pleased by her appreciation, Heaney later arranged via Lillian to send her the card which includes five lines of unpublished verse, likely inspired by the first outbreak of “The Troubles.” 

In his poem “Summer 1969″ from the celebrated collection North (1975), Heaney reflects on being in Spain as The Troubles erupted in Northern Ireland. Trapped under the “bullying sun of Madrid,” the young poet “retreated to the cool of the Prado”. There, he found himself transfixed by two of Goya’s works—including the harrowing Saturn Devouring His Son, its nightmarish imagery mirroring the violence unfolding back home.

The summer of 1969 was a pivotal and tumultuous period in Northern Ireland, marking the beginning of the Troubles, a conflict that lasted for about 30 years. The violence erupted primarily between the Catholic (nationalist) and Protestant (loyalist) communities.