All Ireland Poetry Competition
Mothers' Union members throughout Ireland were recently invited to submit their own poems on the subject of Covid-19 for a competition judged by a published poet, Averil Meehan. Many poems were entered and the joint winners are Olive Thorpe, Cashel, Ferns & Ossory Diocese and our very own Valerie Reilly, Belfast Cathedral, Connor.
Many congratulations to Olive and Valerie, well done Ladies! You can find Valerie's poem below...
DISLOCATION
I walk unyielding pavements by the roads, past nature, clipped, pruned, mown,
confined by hedges, fences, walls and wire, past soaring trees with tarmac round their roots,
their seeds adrift on stony ground.
I think about a dark brown path soft underfoot, that leads me up the hill through lush wild woods
and brackish ponds, the smell of green all round, the sun that spotlights curling ferns through leafy
gaps in beech and thorn.
And then legs aching, breathing short, the top is reached, the fallen tree its roots exposed, the
bench nearby and there the open country stretched away and Strangford gleaming in the mist-filled air.
A car goes roaring past too fast, exhaust fumes linger, air is stale. I turn for home on dusty paths.
Valerie Reilly, Belfast Cathedral MU, Connor