Category: Gardening

  • ‘tree is real silver’ published Poetry Ireland Review (N°138)

      Tree is real silver I. Birds tremble there alighting — (lighting) its stained glass recedes and within each bright ening light ening shape the song of a bird embeds a garnet— Each red-feathered song pewtering silver -ground on lazuli II. I see their (a) -lighting. They leaf the tree in the absence of bud,…

  • ‘The Writing Desk’ and other poems by Sinéad McClure

    ‘The Writing Desk’ and other poems by Sinéad McClure

    Subsidence I’m of the age now That’s how my GP put it as he half muttered something about female hormones leaving my body I imagined them packing their bags happily, looking forward to exploring better terrain, cooler plains. They don’t leave quietly there is a deep boom sounding in me loud enough to raise heckles…

  • ‘The Rosemary’ on Poetry File – RTÉ (Podcast)

    ‘The Rosemary’ She said that Aisling let her cut the sprigs. It is 3.15 p.m, it is Thursday, I am examining two rosemary sprigs their blue-green, their silver underlight. She is stripping the small base leaves from a third, tapping its heel, putting it in a glass of crystal-clear-water for planting out with the roses…

  • “Harbour’s Mouth” and other poems by Annette Skade

    Threnody I know why the sea churns. A woman gets the news, drops to the chair, floor – further, the quick in her bleeds out. She is liquid now, leaching away, this hour, this day, day-on-day. At the back of her eyes a face ebbs and flows: his lop-sided smile makes room for her touch,…

  • ‘Fugue’ and other poems by Chelsea Dingman

    ‘Fugue’ and other poems by Chelsea Dingman

    British Columbia Pastoral   September: almost snow. White sheets across the sky, the fields. How strange   the frost, feral over desert hills. Sage brush caught in the cattle’s   teeth. The river cuts a swath where I am trying to tell you about grass   that presses up through the ground without urging. About…

  • ‘Wild Fennel’ and other poems by Tess Barry

    Raspberries I started out in western Pennsylvania hills with wild raspberry and blackberry bushes and my mother’s apple field. Bread and ripe fruit and fresh milk. My mother cleaned the carpet right off the floor. My father was a Troy Hill boy who played piano and smoked Pall Malls and drank whiskey. He won my…

  • ‘Sequence after Celan’ by Gillian Prew

    ‘Sequence after Celan’ by Gillian Prew

    Sequence after Celan 1 Spring: trees flying up to their birds where the sun is the seeds are freed their small sound a wound like death watercoloured and open each foliated lung with its breathing understory the climb of springtime into the loud light sky filled with dove-coloured words 2 the climbed evening is thick…

  • “St Christina’s Gut” and other poems (series) by Clare McCotter

    Saint Teresa’s Heart   Claiming it a charism too diamond for the dark they hung her heart out to dry in a glass globe. Scraped and chafed with a life story the walls of its chambers reverberate still. A girl calling out to another, scratches gold swallows and nival lilies on woodwork none can unravel.…

  • “Foraois Bháistí” and other poems by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

    “Foraois Bháistí” and other poems by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

    Foraois Bháistí   I mbreacsholas na maidine, leagaim uaim an scuab nuair a aimsím radharc nach bhfacthas cheana   ag dealramh ar an mballa: fuinneog úr snoite as solas, líonta le duilleog-dhamhsa. Múnlaíonn géaga crainn   lasmuigh na gathanna gréine d’fhonn cruthanna dubha a chur ag damhsa ar an mballa fúthu, an duilliúr ina chlúmh…

  • “Killruddery” by Helen Harrison

    Beneath the elders Where bumble bees Lose themselves In flowering thyme; I lie down in dew-soaked ease. And dog-rose is the scent That makes my spirits rise In the kingdom of the low – Flying bird. I take comfort on the mossy soil; Last years leaves sweet; Damp In the wing-tipped breeze, To ease my…