Heartlines

I sometimes walk at sunset
through the long woods up beyond my house
where the mournful owl swoops
among the darkening trees.
I pause and listen to the rustle
and scurry of unseen feet, the various
mutterings of the forest.
As the last light fades, I feel afraid,
yet strangely alert
to the nightlife around me.

And I know the electric thrill of freedom,
the elemental rush of tuned senses
as the soft night breezes ruffle my hair
and the mossy ground sinks beneath me.
The stars flicker above, seen intermittently
through the lacy trellis of the treetops,
and the moon casts a silver net of radiance.
Moon-moths brush against my cheek
and somewhere a night-bird calls a piercing note:
a sad, yet exhilarating, sound.

And then I know that I am in my rightful place,
at one with the forward momentum of life,
as the trees around me are anchored in the rich loam
of the forest and the wind shakes my bones
with the knowledge of my affinity to the earth,
my dark and fertile mother.

Bill Fitzsimons

With passion and with bardic fire
you shaped a golden past;
weaving from the threads of Time
ancient stories, ancient rhyme,
you massaged the nation’s ego
with visions which would last.

Yeats, your poet’s words awoke
the slumbering nation’s heart:
you gave us heroes to admire,
dreams and visions to inspire
the dormant yearnings of the soul:
such is the power of Art.

And yet, is Art the truth,
or merely a well-wrought lie?
By conspiring with your Muse,
our emotions to abuse,
did you stoke the fires of fervour
and cause young men to die?

But what is Truth and what is Art?
what is love or life?
Did you ask those questions when
you picked up paper, picked up pen
and coined a deathless phrase or two
in praise of strife?

And who can blame you ,Willie Yeats,
for what was meant to be?
In truth, you gave the nation pride;
for that , and honour, men have died,
and the Rising’s “terrible beauty”
was Ireland’s destiny.

Bill Fitzsimons

One late summer evening
In the autumn of our lives
As we often do these days
We talked about death

These were our good times
The old feuds, bitter arguments
Cutting insults, biting sarcasms
All lay behind us

We agreed, life is too short
And getting shorter
We resolved to see our days out
In a companionable truce

We no longer rose to the bait
That could disturb the surface of our lives
The wounds were healing
Though some scars remained

I’d like a woodland burial she said
Beneath a rowan tree
To give passers-by pleasure
After I am gone

I will find a suitable location
To bury her ashes and plant the tree
Somewhere to remind me of her,
Somewhere awkward and irritating.

Three decades Dad’s volunteered at Oxfam,
sorting the books, pricing them, putting them out,
taking longer each year to walk the quarter mile,
summer and winter, tapping his stick along streets
shifting like oceans under his feet.
Knocked over once by a gust of wind, picked up
by passersby, making poor progress through snow, rain, sleet.

He went deaf in that shop, grew cancerous,
became a great grandfather five times over,
reached the unlooked-for age of 95,
finally acquired his own chair – till other helpers stole it
to ease their aching knees; he never said a word.

I think I’ll die if I stop, he’s often said.
Once he was four days in hospital, being inconveniently sick.
Went straight back to his books the following week.

Liz McPherson
From the National Poetry Day 2024 collection

This poem and others also appear in Shivering in the Wind published by Yaffle Press.

This year you would have been sixty

your friends would have thrown you a ‘do’ and you,
all of 5 foot 3, would have been a little shy.

Your children would have been here, your cake
would be pale green, home-made,
tulips or narcissi on the table and your oldest son

would have made a speech about how you’d never
forgotten the time you were ill, missed starting school,
spent a year in hospital hoping for a miracle.

There’s a photo of us on the front step
of the house in Blackburn, eyes screwed up
against the sunshine.

On and off I’ve imagined that birthday too;
if you had ever been five, there would have been
banana sandwiches, Hoola Hoops, butterfly buns.

Liz McPherson
From the National Poetry Day 2024 collection

This poem and others also appear in Shivering in the Wind published by Yaffle Press

The people of Ethiopia glory in
a calendar that’s not Gregorian.
With 12 months of 30 days and one of five
it makes you think you could connive
to invent a calendar yourself
that would be better for your health.
So May and June would last 12 weeks
and when the year’s due one of those leaps
it would be in June, the extra day
not February when you don’t want that month to stay
any longer than is necessary –
the same it must be said, of January
10 days each would do for them.
November and March we could condemn
to the same decrease in days
and send Ethiopia all bouquets
and thanks and messages of praise
for their inspiration of our conniving
to have a fresh dawn now arriving.
Our calendar new, unique, would smash it,
forget Pope Gregory, for he is past it.

Rosie Cantrell 2024
From the National Poetry Day 2024 collection

There’s no accounting for taste,
as the man said when he kissed the cow,
was a favourite saying of my mother.
I counted it highly among my many
memories of childhood.
But there’s no accounting for my mother’s
quirky sayings. These days, however,
I count my blessings – chief among them
is the love I have for you. As Elvis sang
so memorably “ I’m counting on you, Dear,
from the dawn of each day. To always come
true, Dear, in your kind loving way.
If you knew just how deeply I feel the things
you do, then you’d know how completely
I’m counting on you.”

Bill Fitzsimons 2024
From the National Poetry Day 2024 collection