Grasshoppers

Chelsea Whitton

All of the bees have gone or have yet to arrive.

Now the flowers seem suddenly terribly

impotent. There will only be so many now.

Now the sun is so bright is so white it is green.

Our fingers get long in the light.

They get strange and we begin to feel

unwell. We reach hard for each other.

This is the first (and last) day of the world.

I say look. I say smoke.

It is coming way from over there,

way far back behind all those trees.

You say does it have to be smoke?

I say yes and this isn’t my fault and I love you.

The world is very old and very innocent.

We lie down.

We lie bellydown in a brown and yellow field.

We lie down in a little quiet.

We say a field is called a quiet, now.

Then we say nothing for a while,

and only comb the quiet grass for grasshoppers.

Some of them are enormous. Some can fly.

They fly away from us, but only far enough to get away.

Is this because they like us, secretly?

Or is it just that they don’t want to be alone today?

We half close our eyes.

Now there are clouds.

Now there are many kinds of clouds.

I know the difference. You say there is no difference.

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 121:

Edited by Eavan Boland

Eavan Boland's first issue as editor of Poetry Ireland Review aims to encourage a conversation about poetry which is 'noisy and fractious certainly ... but a conversation nevertheless that can be thrilling in its reach and commitment'. There are new poems from Thomas McCarthy, Jean Bleakney, Wendy Holborow, Paul Perry, Aifric Mac Aodha, and many others, while the issue also includes work from Brigit Pegeen Kelly, with an accompanying essay on the poet by Eavan Boland. Eavan Boland also offers an introduction to the work of poet Solmaz Sharif, while there are reviews of the latest books from Simon Armitage, Peter Sirr, Lo Kwa Mei-en, and Vona Groarke, among others. PIR 121 also includes Theo Dorgan's elegiac tribute to his friend John Montague – a canonical poet, in contrast to the emerging poets Susannah Dickey, Conor Cleary and Majella Kelly, who contribute new work and will also read for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series as part of ILFD 2017.