It is to admire, the dedication of Ireland to her writers and poets.

Stories and verse are held close and read in weekly doses.

The next writer featured from Oranmore or Kilmainham or Skibbereen.

All have something to be told.

Just as words born from Beckett and Heaney, Yeats and Tynan,

these are ancient and bold.

It is a patchwork stitched from ages of fabric and thread,

pierced with tales of loss and love and fairy trees.

Sometimes covered with gorse and rock, instead.

But almost always green and growing

beneath a cloudful blue, with the wind blowing.

Held fast in stone with those who’ve passed

or washed in crashing waves felt in the west.

Words that only come from those who live and die

stitched to their land with a needle through a feather in the sky.