John Noonan

Ground                      

i.m. my brother, Laurence Noonan

Fields know about endings:

a meadow folds to-and-fro

as first light slides away dewdrops.

Fields too understand calves’ 

spring-buck-leap over

thistledown, their breath cloud 

fading to wherever warmth goes, 

even the slow Rath River 

remembers to dip below stone 

during summer’s dry spells.

This June morning your land slopes

down to the clay-crumble gateway,

its grass bowing to the black

gleam of a hearse as it purrs past.

---

John Noonan grew up on a farm in rural County Longford Ireland. His poetry was Highly Commended for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2022, and he has published in magazines both in Ireland and abroad. John’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and he has previously won The Goldsmith Poetry Competition.