Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry
Banagher Glen
Where rowans grow nearby the downy birch,
where Neolithic farmers first arrived,
a pristine forest thrives in sunlit beams
and in Glenedra Valley, there’s a church.
‘Twas founded by St. Patrick there beside
a flowing stream. Sorrel and celandine
limn ancient stone of which the church was made,
where spirited, the willow warblers search
the sessile oak and hazel, far and wide.
An Irish treasure found, the forest gleams.
So swiftly blows the wind where trees entwine,
where pathways old into the Sperrins thrive
on trails laced with gentle columbine,
as in this glen, the past remains alive…
Lucia Kiersch Haase has been writing formal and free verse poetry for 30 years as the direct result of a spiritual experience. Many of her poems are published and award winning poems.