by Paul Casey

for Rosie

I scaled the cliffs of Moher
to write about the tourists
trekked south till there were no more
barriers, signs of stick men falling
to where I could breathe
alone

right up at the edge where I have always been afraid
                                of imagining
that I have always been
                                and forever will be         falling
    imagine
                   being afraid of imagining
                                                                       falling
and let go
                  spilled
                               back
                                          eyes to sky
clutching burren blossoms                  picked for you

I went in gannet–deep
shot straight into the air
to reclaim my still form
then danced
in the tower of Moher
above the clear blue day

Trace memories of this scene recur
mitochondrial microfilm coaxed open by the sun
these cliffs those islands, the fall
and lay of it, the width & breadth of it
the countless known unknowns
like Mog of the Hundred Battles

or why Clare isn’t in Connacht.
But writing as I walk now
should this ledge crumble
please know you were
the last wildflower
on my mind

by Jessica Traynor

We are living now
in the era of lost things.

Can you feel
the bee’s wingbeat

as it dodges
into the slipstream

of the ephemeral? No —
you’re cocooned

in screens embroidered
with shifting letters,

that tell any story
you want to hear.

Could you bear
the awareness

of each vanishing;
the last ever swish

of a tiger’s tale,
the cuckoo’s call

fossilized in a clock,
and lost to the morning

the sparrow’s
warlike chatter?

It all sounds just like
the stuff of fairytales;

encode the forest in a story,
close the book.

by Jessica Traynor

November slips into December
like cold air down my throat.

I catch my crow’s feet
in the mirror and swallow

the shock of years vanishing —
the thought of you

as a grandmother is something
I have stolen, something

my child in turn might steal.
We are thinning you out.

I want to give you back those years:
I’ll find them stuffed in the pockets

of my warm winter coat,
dry as leaves piled for a bonfire.

Stand with me and we’ll cast them
on the flames, watch them

curling as they burn,
floating on the frosted air.

by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Three weeks after her birth
I wrap my tiny daughter in a rainbow blanket
and wheel her to the forest.

There, I see poems in each clutch of wildflowers
in ragwort, convolvulus, buttercup,
thistle. In that sharp tall growth,

it is impossible not to see her birth
my belly that grey–green bauble–blister,
a plump bud on narrow stem, where a girl emerges,

sudden as a crisp purple bloom.
I want so much
to return to those brutal days,

to meet myself stumbling down a dark
corridor at 3 am
towards her incubator.

I would grasp my hand
and whisper
Soon,

you will walk together on forest paths
and this hospital will no longer be
visible, even in the distance.