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| 'Spring Lamb' by Cliff Donaldson, Northern Ireland. Image source: IFAJ |
Where the little people ride the wee lambs
round the pasture, down the locks, through the jams
to the high circle on top the hill, where
clouds touch the earth and angels’ long, long hair
is roped into ladders by leprechauns there
to swing on, smoke their tiny pipes, no swipes
at other wee people, just the big hypes
that close their eyes to the wee one’s presence,
but there he sits, swinging, lambs leaping, rents
in the primroses, a tasty fare, then
rosy fingers of morning cover them.
Leprechauns leaps upon lambs’ back, through fence,
hazelnuts, past loch, jams, through the long rents
leprechauns tore for their jaunt, recompense
the gold they lay by the bleating ewes’ nest
gold that can only be found by those that
believe wee people exist, and prat-
tle out loud asking for their small favors,
granted if the leprechaun so savors.
Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee, won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press. Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.