Song

Paul Batchelor

‘Make my bed with all things green;

Love is easy lost and won …’

Half-forgotten, the refrain

Answers to itself alone.

We who took that tendered phrase

For a sign or wedding vow

Thinking it was meant for us

Cannot look for pardon now.

Should you turn to speak to me –

Love forestalled, hope in your eyes –

What would I feel but dismay,

Mild remorse and mild unease?

Out of silence comes the true

Saying every poet hears,

Self-consoling answer to

All the human heart requires;

Nothing you could call a tune,

Nothing I’d claim as my own:

Make my bed with all things green.

Love is easy lost and won.

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 120:

Edited by Vona Groarke

Vona Groarke's final issue as editor is packed with new poems from leading contemporary poets, including Simon Armitage, Sinéad Morrissey, Colette Bryce, Paul Muldoon, Sean O'Brien and Caitríona O'Reilly. Books reviewed include new work from Derek Mahon, Bernard O'Donoghue, Rita Ann Higgins, Martina Evans, Denise Riley and the 2016 Forward Prize winner Vahni Capildeo. The centrepiece of the issue is an interview with Paul Muldoon in which the Armagh maestro shares his thoughts on subjects as diverse as public surveillance, the economic down-turn, and the exclamation mark. The cover image is by photographer Justyna Kielbowicz, and the issue also contains award-winning artwork from Sven Sandberg, Aoife Dunne, Jane Rainey, and Michelle Hall. Instead of an editorial, Vona herself answers the questionnaire she put to the contributors of Poetry Ireland Review Issue 118: The Rising Generation.