The Paradox of Mindfulness: Seamus Heaney’s “St Kevin and the Blackbird”

Myers gets inspiration of mindfulness in the midst of exhaustion from Seamus Heaney's poem about the sixth-century Irish saint, Kevin of Glendalough. Heaney presents Kevin in this poem less a perfectly pious saint than a humble, warm-hearted man who takes his responsibilities to all living creatures quite seriously. From this vantage point, it is not difficult to draw comparisons between Kevin and any number of physicians who give fully of themselves to those who are entrusted to their care.