For this week’s creative retreat, I am sharing one of my own poems, followed by some reflections and a creative prompt, all of which is also shared in the audio version.
Closer. Sometimes I wake before the world wakes, but that all depends on how we circle the word: world. The starling was out first, beak sorting blades of grass and clover, right then left, hoping for pickings. The sparrow too, seeking a seed. So far, only husks. Over the harbour, April’s dawn had streaks of heather through its golden sheen. There is a spider’s web. There is a plant that’s outgrown its container. I am awake because my dog was ill. She sits on the sofa, eyes wide, calling for my comfort. We sit in the morning sun, her tiny body trembling. It is one part fear. The other says Come here. Closer. I move my hand in circling motions along her back, as a mother might sooth a newborn. Her body yields to my touch. The day unfolds itself through the kitchen window. Closer. I say to it all. I need you to come closer. -Clare Mulvany, April 2025.
This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is to face into reality, not to shun nor to repel, not to jump too fast to an assumption, not to dismiss, but instead to hold the veracity and truth of what I see and feel before me with an honesty which holds also the power of witness. To see something, to really see it, to draw it closer, to turn it around. In that motion of gesture, we alter our relationship to whatever truth we find ourselves facing. We see it from another level. Holding it closer we find nuance, more specificity. In the granular we see that the seed is not just seed, but a husk too. Or a bird is not just a bird but a starling, a house sparrow, a great tit, a chaffinch. We see the iridescence of the starling’s feathers which at a distance may be deemed black, but closer the feather reveals it’s true colours: green, deep blues and purples, specks of tawny brown, all shimmering. The light too is masked with shadow and shade, dappled, frayed at the edges of the dawn. Here in the poem, I am turning towards the domestic, but implied is also the global: to face the world as a kind of readying, naming, while also knowing the ground one stands on.
Sitting in the morning light with my sick pet (who is fine now by the way- just a bad tummy bug), it made me settle to take in the tiny beauties and realities facing me. In those moments, as the kitchen light grew, the thought of loosing Milly raced through me. It was my own fear, which was right up against my unquestionable will to comfort her in her own distress. I couldn’t solve the issue in those moments, but I could accompany her, and in that solidarity with her own suffering, we both found relief. We had turned towards each other, facing the blunt pain of that moment, only for it to shift, in me and in her.
As I share my own poem, there are also some lines from another poem arriving, those of Kerrie Hardie, from She Reply’s to Carmel’s Letter, a piece I turned to many years ago during a time of my own distress. The poet has been out walking, further than she could manage, and needs to sit for a moment in the grass, ‘down where the hare sees’, letting herself drop into the reality of her exhaustion.
sometimes even sickness is generous and takes you by the hand and sits you beside things you would otherwise have passed over.
This may not feel like a particularly generous moment in time, so brutal are the realities so much of the world is facing, including its kin of the starling and the sparrow. But, I am wondering here if it can also be a moment of sitting to face into companionship. Rather than shunning or denial, can it be a turning closer towards, held in fear perhaps, but also held in the embrace of the beauties of the world. And sitting, maybe we will have a moment to turn towards a view we’ve never had eyes on before, and see a path through the thick hedgerows where the hare has already tunnelled her way. At human eye level, it’s not the obvious route. It takes hare eyes, starling wings, light like heather, the husks of what might get discarded.
Your Creative Invitation
So, your creative invitation this week is to put on ‘Hare eyes’, inviting a new perspective from a different height. What route through do you see from low to the ground? What alternative paths might be available? And who might you be able to accompany as you may your way through?
And if you would like another perspective on seeing with hare’s eyes, Chloe Dalton’s book, Raising Hare is an exquisite account of accompanying a wild young leveret she found limp on a path, to it’s own motherhood, right in her own back garden. It is a book that has tunnelled a path into my own heart, and will forever leave its trace. I was delighted to see it has been shortlisted for The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction. I listened to the audio book, read by Louise Brealey, who did an excellent job at narrating the text.
Coming up on The Wild Edge.
For paid subscribers to The Wild Edge. Membership starts at just €1.53 per week (if taking out annual membership, or €1.84 is monthly).
Owl Hours: Creative Practice.
These are hours to gather together, with intention, to work on your own creative projects.
8-9pm Irish/UK Time (Please note that we are in Summer Daylight Saving hours now. You can check your time zone conversion here).
April Dates: Thursday 10th , Thursday 24th
May Dates: Thursday 8th, Thursday 15th, Tuesday 20th, Thursday 29th
Poetry Salon:
Running now for over 15 years, my regular poetry salon has gathered hundreds of people from across the world. This is an hour of reading poetry together, and sharing insights, learnings and stories the poem evokes. Participants have described them as ‘a sanctuary for a turbulent world’, and ‘a spa for the mind; helping retreat from the busyness of the day’. You can find out more about the salons here.
Sunday 13th: April, 6-7pm
Seasonal Salon: Bealtaine
Following the rhythm of the Celtic Seasons, the Bealtaine Salon will combine writing, reflection, poetry and seasonal ritual.
Tickets are included in ‘Gold Membership’ of The Wild Edge. Or can be purchased here.
Friday 2 May, 7-8.30pm Irish/UK time.
Share this post