Openings

Henry Moore walks sideways
on the stairway down to the cellar –

keeps his eyes on the lighted doorway,
frightened of the dark as he fetches
apples for his coalminer father. Henry,
needs to find a way out,

remembering the crypt and the sun
struggling to press through the slag
heaps and the cavernous subterranean
world of his youth’s landscape. He sculpts

stone; the light enters through its
many openings.

chiselled poems– pursue precision,
may puzzle – a glimmer’s enough –
the tiniest ray, a wave, crossing
distance like sound – immensely faster.

Mary Lee’s poems have been published nationally and internationally; including Skylight 47; Orbis; The Galway Literary Review; Poems for Patience competition, (highly commended, 2018) Crannog; The Poet’s Quest for God, 2016 (anthology, Eyewear Publications, UK); Dodging website; A New Ulster website; The Wild Word website; Her work has been broadcast on A Living Word, RTE Radio 1. Mary’s second poetry collection Everyday Epiphanies is due in 2021.