Petulant sun quarrels with crabbed sky
It probes, prods, sneaks
Through gaps in broken cloud,
Catches the crests of waves that roll
In deep swells across the estuary.
Gales lash the craggy headland
Pummel long-stemmed grass into submission;
Rain shards pierce weathered faces
While wrens search out the whin’s snug core.
It is midsummer’s day and Nature rages:
Brother Man, row back, row back,
Our world is not, is not, yours to destroy.
©
Mike Gallagher is an Irish poet and editor. His poetry has been published and anthologised throughout the world and translated into several languages. He won the Michael Hartnett Viva Voce competition in 2010 and 2016, was shortlisted for the Hennessy Award in 2011 and won the Desmond O’Grady International Poetry Contest in 2012.
In 2018, he was placed in Listowel Writers Week and in 2019 he won the Westival Slam. His poetry collection “Stick on Stone” is published by Revival Press. The poem included here appears in his first collection “Stick on Stone”.