Ruined House Near Goleen

The keen eye that chose this stone
And the slow hand that placed it here
Are long gone.
But something lives on
n these slowly disordering dreams.
Not memory but a kinship of shared being
Made rich by a common resolution
To shelter and be sheltered.

This stone must have loved that moment
When it was chosen.
Lifted from aeons neglect
By practiced hands.
Touched, lifted, fondled, hewn
And placed here,
Nestled and nestling with a common sigh.
Denied then, from that moment,
The blissful touch of sweat on spitted hands.
Consigned, as silent witness,
To the unravelling of time.

​© Pearse O'Shiel

Train Warp

​The train slowed, passing Treptower park,
One of the city’s green lungs.

Still haunted by a painting in the Berlinische galerie,
I see a soldier- Russian, German –who knows,
Cut down , snapped to pieces by bombs
In a smouldering Alien forest.
He seems to hug a stump.

Leaf mould, soil and ashes cover some barely connected limbs.
His blood and guts and other’s fed regrowth and plantation.
In the years after yet another war,
Old trees shade those wounds,
Leaves and petals, like confetti celebrate life.

Tickets bitte!
The train gathers speed, my journey goes on.

​© Wiltrud Dull
​

We'll Never Have This Time Again

​We’ll never have this time again
To clear and cull
To prep and plant
To wait and watch
To hear and feel.

We’ll never have this time again
To listen and think
To trust ourselves
To be in touch,
To want so much.

We’ll never have this time again
To do no harm
To confront change
To turn the page
To grieve, to heal.
​
We’ll never have this time again.

© Patricia Anne Moore

Energy and Matter

Screentime brings beloved faces close,
but steals energy we can scarcely spare.
Nervous system in tatters,
erratic breath, is bait, on a chain
of hooks, lines, fishing for certainties.

Hypervigilant, we watch the night sky
questioning: is that a candle flame
in a neighbour’s window, or a star?
That call: a distant handclap?
A cosmos run ragged.
We stay home, or not,
in our one shared home: this small planet in crisis.

Glimpsed from the corner of the eye,
Creatures scuttle past outside the window-
birds, mice, fairies? It hardly matters.

We become watchers, spectate
on an epidemic of zoom classes,
online concerts, yoga, dance and
virtual tours of ancient sites.
Still seeking busyness
to escape the question: so what does matter?

What matters, now as ever,
is just to be alive to this moment,
to bear witness to this time of change.
To slow the breath, eat green things
and simplify our lives; to want less, need less,
cry, laugh, love, wildly, and stay present to it all.

To stand barefoot on the earth,
like a tree, leaf buds unfurling
in the spring sunshine,
to reach out, while staying rooted,
and be here now as best we can.

© Ruth Marshall
​

There will be Time

Corona 1
The inner ocean breathes
One breath at a time.
way to get ahead
By taking five.

The inner turmoil strives
To get ahead in time,
But all that I can do
Is live
One day at a time.

Corona 2
Life is full of change
Fine for those
Surfing the wave,

But those of us
Picking seashells on the shore
Are blown away.

Corona 3
It is not laziness
It is rest
A time to still the soul
A time to sit and wait
At the God shaped hole.

A time to be aware
Of the yearning
That is there
To connect
Not with others
But with oneself
After years of neglect.

So easy to rush and go
To perform and do
But now is the time
To be unafraid
And bravely
joyously
quietly
​meet You.

© Maria Gold

Better Be On Time

​My mother used to have us at twenty-firsts, hours
before everyone else, because the invitation said
eight and we couldn’t be late. In cold, dusty halls
and rooms above pubs, we waited for parties to
get started, pretending to be having a good time.
Herself and Da would drive around the block, if
they arrived at your home at five to, and you had
asked them to lunch at one. Or, sat in the car
while you peeped through the venetian
blinds, wondering what they were up to.
That is why I spend my time in a hurry, rushing
forgetting things, dropping things, losing things
heart racing, to be on time. For fear of keeping
you waiting; you who wouldn’t mind
who would probably be late yourself.
Always on time for doctor’s appointments
to wait in waiting rooms. For interviews
classes, nowadays for Zoom, better be on time
Going back, going forward, in no time at all.
A student needed help with time management
unable to make it to class at the required hour
sometimes. He looked at me expectantly as if
I might have a miracle cure he could swallow.
Are you looking for attention, I asked him?
His face bewildered, not understanding.
Because every time you’re late, you disrupt
the lesson. Students, distracted, look your way
I have lost them. You have their full attention.
That never dawned on me, he was astonished
It’s as easy be on time, as be late, I repeated
what my mother had drummed into me.

​© Frances Browner

Resurgence

Camellia never forgets.
Her rosy buds and petals
scatter blush confetti on Spring’s
entrance parade year on year.

Camellia never forgets.
Brought in bunches with daffodils
by Bridie from the village
on the day my father passed away.

Camellia never forgets.
At Easter I planted one in a corner
of the garden where he dug,
tended to cabbage and potatoes.

Camellia never forgets.
Even when after Bridie’s funeral
an out-of-town nephew deemed it unruly
sheared it to the ground.

Camellia never forgets.
This Spring walking past Bridie's old house
I glimpsed resurgence
a resilient glint of pink.

​© Róisín Bugler
​

Go Inside

Be ready he said.
Go inside.
Bring only essentials,
to walk this path:
side-track the rocks,
the shore, the flat lands.
Be ready to fall,
rise up again, feel the fear,
let it go.

Go inside.
I will be behind you,
to help you, to hold you
Breathe.
See, as if for the first time,
the beauty.
Hear the sound of the birds,
of running water.
Breathe.

Look, see the primrose.
It’s their season.
They grow without effort.
You are made from the same source.
Call on it.
Call for the world.
Call. It is time.
I am beside you, in you.
Go inside.
Call.
Wherever you are, I will hear you.

​© Patricia Donnellan

The Morning Hour

​This is the time I cherish when my mind has yet to settle
into a day’s pattern and the air thickens with possibilities.

In-between time, house still unruffled by expectations
grandmother clock chiming the hour through morning stillness,

minutes when rain jewelling the window acts as a prism
letting in light to spaces too often left in shadow.

Stolen time, words revealing themselves

before the daytime

clamour tucks them back in the tangle

of a too-busy mind.

The breaking day eases my body awake,

thoughts slow to follow,

lingering in the hinterlands of poetry.

© Nicki Griffin