Month: April 2020

lilac tames the sun-flamed roses
tucks in their blowsy ripeness
dusk brings peace to colours warring
in the flower beds

From “A Promise Made” by Sighle Meehan

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Whole fields have surrendered – the night
lifts its hood over them, calms them, sings a hymn
of warm silence to lull the grass to sleep.
A small wind brushes past my leg,
somewhere a bird settles in a hedgerow
or rests its full breast in the stubble of the corn.

From “Connemara” by Seán Hewitt

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I was just getting down to work,
turning scraws over with a spade,
when I came on them, snug as landmines: bulbs
he’d planted years before, still waiting there

From “Bulbs” by Patrick Moran

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At the grey round of the hill
Music of a lost kingdom
Runs, runs and is suddenly still.
The winds out of Clare-Galway
Carry it: suddenly it is still.

From “The Musicians” by W.B. Yeats

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These roads breathe the curve of slopes
rise and fall running through valleys
open to the moon, where scattered houses glow,
sky and land are tarnished reflections of each other,
dark, silver scrubbed. Headlights flash,
then dim, another car zooms by.

From “Sally Gap” by Eoin Rogers

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Though our provisions will not last long
And who knows what weather front approaches,
Are these waves not beautiful,
This sky?

From “Horizons” by Simon Ó Faoláin

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At the sound of a gate through the evening air:
At the foot of her slope are the tiny cows
Stilled like a painting in the morning calm
While the stream-side oaks spray whorls of crows.

From “By Silbury” by Adam Thorpe

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The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

From “The Wild Swans at Coole” by W.B. Yeats

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sky brilliant and alive, stars electric
after rain, the aftermath of storm
searing through my brain

From “Storm, Lake Superior” by Ethna McKiernan

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