01-05-2025
Poetry Day Ireland 2025: May Day by Gabriel Rosenstock
As part of Poetry Day Ireland 2025, twelve poems have been selected following a national call out to respond to this year's theme, May Day - read May Day by Gabriel Rosenstock below.
May Day
A 'found poem' from the Carmina Gadelica
On the first day of May
the people of the crofter townland
are up betimes and busy as bees
about to swarm.
This is the day of migrating,
'bho baile gu beinn,'
from townland to moorland,
from the winter homestead
to the summer sheiling.
The summer of their joy is come,
the summer of the sheiling,
the song, the pipe,
and the dance,
when the people ascend the hill
to the clustered bothies,
overlooking the distant sea
from among the fronded ferns
and fragrant heather,
where neighbour meets neighbour,
and lover meets lover.
