As global events become more portentous, I’ve had in mind the following poem by Patrick Kavanagh:

I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided, who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man’s land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting “Damn your soul!”
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel –
“Here is the march along these iron stones.”
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.

We live in times that are portentous, but Kavanagh reminds me that even our own small squabbles, our joys, and our travails are the stuff of eternal poetry and song. We are not spectators but great characters in our selves, if only we have the eyes to see it that way.