These two engaging poems by Catherine Phil MacCarthy come from her 2012 collection, The Invisible Threshold (Dedalus Press, Dublin).
Educated at University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin, and the Central School of Speech and Drama London, she is also a former editor of Poetry Ireland Review.
FOREST WALK AT GLENDALOUGH
High up among the pines
at Glendalough, above the falls
at Coolnabass, past hazel, willow
and birch, past oak, yew, and larch,
~
there’s no one to be seen.
Voices echo from the ridge,
or from somewhere below
in the valley, dappled laughter.
~
Rabbits nibble the sunny verge,
stilled by the beat of our footfall.
As we halt, young deer grazing
on sphagnum along the edge
~
turn heads and gaze with eyes
of liquid wonder. In seconds they lift
long forelegs and vanish
into deep darkness of the forest.
~
Time and again their curiosity
gives way – once they sense
we are human and share
the same earth - to dread.
STORM
The tree is shaking its head at the wind
and throwing up empty hands in fury
and the wind, the wind is running away,
legs gathering speed, running
across the far fields to the sea.
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