(after Maureen Boyle)
if this is the last spring of the world
will we realise it?
will our pallor echo
the paleness of primroses?
will we caress the trumpets of daffodils?
will we mourn our final glimpse
of fledglings in a nest?
will we kiss the suede softness of catkins?
will we comprehend
the bouncing lambs are the last we’ll see?
will we feel pain
as we watch the stretch in the evening?
will we savour
the delicate strength of snowdrops?
will we marvel
at the magnificence of Spring tides?
will the Blood Moon become apocalyptic?
if this is the last spring of the world
will we shed tears into the freshly turned soil?
Sinead Coxhill grew up on a farm in Northern Ireland. She began to write poetry in 2014, joining Portrush Writers and later North Coast Writers. She performed at Stendhal and Red Sails festivals and won a bursary to attend the John Hewitt Literary Arts Festival and Summer School in Armagh
She has had poems published in 11 anthologies. Her first collection, Menopausal Mermaids & Life Lines was published by Impspired Press in 2025.
Image: Blood Moon over Brastad old Cemetery by W. Carter, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
The moon coming out of shadow at the end of the July 2018 lunar eclipse, over the old cemetery in Brastad, Lysekil Municipality, Sweden
