Nursery
I sleep near them,
peep in at night before I settle,
imagine then blossom.
At first light I slip out of snooze,
lift the lid off the propagator,
test the soil for moistness,
inspect for growth.
Hope sunlight will rain
on them all the days of their lives.
Today’s poem is from Jean Tuomey’s debut collection, Swept Back, (Lapwing). She won the Jonathan Swift Creative award in 2021 and the St. Francis Hospice poetry competition in 2022.
Always there
as followers of my family, like shadows
merged with the earth when I look for them
in fields wide open to a sky that sees them
green-cloaked, moss-rolled, still
as stones inside the shifting distance
to a line reached by no one,
they have always shown themselves to me
as shadows left behind by love —
glimpsed from an indifferent train,
racing a headlight’s beam, silvered
in miniature on the old Irish thruppence
found on my just-brushed floor.
— after a painting by Mary Donnelly
Enda Coyle-Greene’s most recent collection is Indigo, Electric, Baby (Dedalus Press, 2020)
I sleep near them,
peep in at night before I settle,
imagine then blossom.
At first light I slip out of snooze,
lift the lid off the propagator,
test the soil for moistness,
inspect for growth.
Hope sunlight will rain
on them all the days of their lives.
Today’s poem is from Jean Tuomey’s debut collection, Swept Back, (Lapwing). She won the Jonathan Swift Creative award in 2021 and the St. Francis Hospice poetry competition in 2022.
Always there
as followers of my family, like shadows
merged with the earth when I look for them
in fields wide open to a sky that sees them
green-cloaked, moss-rolled, still
as stones inside the shifting distance
to a line reached by no one,
they have always shown themselves to me
as shadows left behind by love —
glimpsed from an indifferent train,
racing a headlight’s beam, silvered
in miniature on the old Irish thruppence
found on my just-brushed floor.
— after a painting by Mary Donnelly
Enda Coyle-Greene’s most recent collection is Indigo, Electric, Baby (Dedalus Press, 2020)
