Today’s choice

Previous poems

Cáit O’Neill McCullagh

 

 

 

And when you step into the clearing

there will be dancing. The unsteady moon, shaken
to ribbon; shimmering through regalia of clouds. Shawls,
as if ermine, still scurrying (wee winter-whitened weasels).
& the one elm sways too. Lit, like a many-armed Durga.
You think a tree can be stilled by soil? That roots would
drown a soul in ground? Stay your sights, even as body
sends you circling. Look, un-giddied. Remain: forward
& centre. Pasts done & undone. You, the rhythm of quake.
Waken. Clear forest from your feet. Listen. It will be your
name calling & you hearing it spoken, for the first time.

 

 

Cáit O’Neill McCullagh‘s debut collection The Bone Folder was shortlisted for The Saltires, in 2025; the year she won the McLellan Prize. Living with cancer, at home in the Highlands, she is writing her next collection (TBP 2027). See @kittyjomac and www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org

Siân Bentham

She doesn’t know what she is doing.
She chops and boils, snacks and sneezes, sits.
Classical radio plays, imbuing
the scene with comic dignity and wit.

Amy Dugmore

How much water did you have to drink this morning?
Did you sip your coffee without worrying
about its diuretic properties? Was it sunny
where you were?