Three calves and a half dozen lambs today’s tally from my daily fix of fresh air past a straggle of houses on the short length of narrow limestone that ambles past headstones as they contemplate the clouds smell the sea in their cradle of hazy Kerry hills.

each time i walk the halli re-position the rugso its angles alignto the floorboards

Parental Care Burying-beetle bride and groom to-be pair up near a dying rodent or bird, dig a grave and let the animal sink into the soil.

Green with envyyet soft underneathwelike the plantjagged edges

Sometimes, a storycalls me to go deepinto the forest of my psyche. I prevaricate, procrastinate;skirt around the bordersof those dark, enchanted woods do anything but stirthe monstrous shadowsfrom their slumber. For if I wake them,I must write them –ugliness and shame and pain and all. I dare not expose them. Myself.(Though the best kind of writing…

Wracklines: Taming the Tides (of Grief) ‘Grief is a country that has no definite borderlines and that recognises no single trajectory. It is a space that did not exist before your loss, and that will never disappear from your map, no matter how hard you rub at the charcoal lines. You are changed utterly, and your personal geography becomes yours and yours only’.

The Last WalkIn memoriam Tadhg Mac Suibhne I walk through the forestcarrying the sadness of your leaving.

Landscape of Home childhood slips, childhood slips fiddles jig; and ceilidh, ceilidh;meadows flourish; and longhouses, longhouses

i lost my childhood;left by boat on the cold wide sea

The landscape sleepwalks, then stumbles awake as a white wall looms to blind my window. Orange, purple, the sleepy sky dresses in the dark.

This post is something quite special: two songs by singer-songwriter Leïla Six! 'River' was only released just over a week ago on 7 March, so you're getting some brand new music at Mugwort today. Enjoy! - Kate

Three weeks of social-distancing, self-isolationand talking up our spirit of endurance;Shackleton’s Endurance sailed for forty-five daysbefore coming a cropper in Antarctic ice.

Grief is the mother of voyages. There are cities of grief, There are cities of joy, There are deserts filled with wandering bones, - Cities by Oluwasegun Romeo Oriogun Bilaad, tell me how your hips burntwearing the belly belt of a lasciviousdancer, as her gold coins sang a tuneto elude your sensibilities; tell me ofthe tribe throne you capitulated for her.

Man who are you half-face?that face, transient, its need to reveal, red, black, reda rose hip tossed in the wind

Science Fiction brought me up wrong, taughtthe long view—by which I mean a million years—and only then to zoom back in,

Incantation for mermaid hair A coach of us collected from a station, continued to the strandA golden lock of beach before, and between, the neck of a river.

Eros came with blanketing words unsounded my peddler hearta magician pulling five-colour ribbons from a crusted sleeve. And I emerged, a beetle with larva thoughtsbarely hidden beneath my shiny armour

The Calling Your ancestors call upon youTo become a healer. The bones point to a riverMami Wata calls from the caverns

Wrestling this untamed spacewith every tool at hand,they observe from an impregnable nest,bring food for their chicksin the poplars that mark the boundarybetween us and the churchyard.

Walking the lanes, the sun knows which side the leaves are buttered,has toasted the fields gently, warmed the earth with afternoon rays.

Two crows flew low side by side east to westabove a crone sat mild as the weather.

Dickens dogspeer through frosted glass.Look at us they say,one dayall you see will be opaque as this.

Hour, Orbit, and Waves FromBehind freckled clouds enters a lunar glowTrying to repay the celestial debt

First published in One Hand Clapping. Finola Scott seeks to untangle politics and examine the natural world. Although she knows her words won’t change the world, she continues. Looking out of her window, listening to the geese, she thinks and writes in Scots and English. Finola has competition success. The recent winner of the Ulster Scots Poetry Prize, the MacDiarmid Tassie, Runner-up in McLellan competition and the Badenoch Prize. 

The Wild Winds Coldly Blow: A Withens Tale I tell thee, it were bitter that January. The day started fine; cold, blue skies, an’ Stanbury Moor hoary wi’ a cracklin’ frost. Silvery needles of ice stiffened every sprig of heather and tuft of sedge. Bonny enough, I grant you, though I grumbled as I trudged t’ well, shielding my eyes from the glare off Delf Hill and Withens Height.

Aloha Hi, how do you do?The rhythm and the balanceRequired by haiku

Get Broomstick, Fly! Sally buys her broomstick in SainsburysBesom style, willow twigs and twine,Ash handle smooth in costume fingers Long mustard fleece worn, borrowedlike an animal Belt hanging downto cartoon thin calves shaped for flight Sensible shoes sparkle at the heelsThat rhinestone clickmaking everyday magicspells that aren't just for Halloween Her long hair a highlight, windswept…

The Leaves, Birds and Me The leaves don’t choreograph their waltz with the wind, though the wind always leads,eventually leaving each partner stranded.

Anyway. You must be wondering what this is about. Well. I’ve been very impressed with your performance in your current role and. Look, before I go on, I have to say that everything I’m going to tell you is in the strictest confidence.

You’re like the pea that kept the princess up all night.How your head presses against me, becominga deadweight bowling ball after asking me a questionI answered and expected you to hear.

The wildness, the chaos, that knits me from it.The branches within me, the twigs of fingers,reaching and snagging on hats and hair,trying to be human.

Before he was Welsh, he'd have lappedup gold leaf on the ripples that flickerback at the sun.

The Whole Wild Mess of You The sun bleaches the stone.The rain washes it cool.Flowers cover your name.