For Poetry Day Ireland 2025, twelve poems have been selected following a national call out to respond to this year's theme, May Day - read We Carried May by Róisín Leggett Bohan below.
We Carried May
for Ariel, resident cat of Tyrone Guthrie Centre
in our mouths. Nightwalks. You padding behind, belly dipping
the tips of dandelion seeds. Your slinky trot followed by a sudden
sprint-gallop. Out of nowhere, your electric whiskers bunting
every sprouting thing: ankles of trees, sleeping buttercups. That fawn
moth you played with, let go — watched it beat upward before you rolled
on your back, as if to say: I give you this, only this — take it. You taught me
to pause, listen, to bustling shafts of long grass, the bending backs of rushes, sift of branches murmuring above us reminded me that chaos
becomes too tricksy at times. You offered me your magnetic eyes —
nocturnal vision, until I got my bearings with beauty I was not made
to see. You took my ink-hand blotted with limp words down to the boathouse, where water lisped and eddied through pockets
of the boat slip. And as evening slapped up rain, you rowed the currach
out to the middle of the lake. We inhaled the quiet landing before you mewed in Morse code: imagine if we could forgive ourselves everything.
From Beginnings Over and Over: Four New Poets from Ireland (Dedalus Press, 2025)
Poetry Day Ireland 2025 will take place on Thursday, 1st May - find out more here.
