After your death in the small hours –
the sun came up, clouds rent and parted,
all the night-lying fog dispersed,
so light drenched fields and trees
shimmered with a rainy greenness,
the incessant song of small birds
and shifting cobalt veils crosslit the sky,
a sense of first breath on the earth, of birth.
© Catherine Phil MacCarthy, from The Invisible Threshold, published here by kind permission of Dedalus Press, Dublin, 2012
Picture 12947117, Wheat Field with Rising Sun, Van Gogh, 1889, © Mary Evans / Pictures Now Collection
Catherine Phil MacCarthy has published five collections of poetry (and a novel), most recently Daughters of the House (2019) and The Invisible Threshold (2012), both with Dedalus Press, Dublin. Her poems arise often from wonder and the quest to understand, explore the primal power of attachment and desire, and deliver experiences of what it is to be human. They observe our connection to the world around us, and the threatened natural environment. She received the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry, and is a former editor of Poetry Ireland Review. She was born in Co. Limerick, and has lived in Dublin since 1987. www.catherinephilmaccarthy.com