As part of Poetry Day Ireland 2025, twelve poems have been selected following a national call out to respond to this year's theme, May Day - read I Carve a Future into the Year by Jo Bear below.
I Carve a Future into the Year
Annually, the rewilding. As one,
the hills & mountains blink away
their sleep—irises pink-petaled
& dewed. I have circled again
to this beginning, no longer
flighty child nor phasing youngster
so desperate to disappear.
This, the month of my birth,
renews a certain faith in mutability:
we will return from the brittle days,
land & body both. Hunted as I am,
I rarely indulge in the lush imaginary
of my own days ahead, & yet I have
pictured the city at dawn, too early for fear,
how I might move like a myth made
body while the streets fill with feathers.
In the sky & the green, all is shot through
with cleansing fire. I can smell it on my skin:
the roving circles a bird makes to gauge
its ground before alighting.
Poetry Day Ireland 2025 will take place on Thursday, 1st May - find out more here.
