After Walking in the Forest

Written By Faye Boland

I dream of trees and wake

to the sound of birds chirruping.

My skin has toughened into bark,

each struggle embossed on its crust.

My arms have grown branches,

my head is crowned with a mess

of leaves and I stretch like sequoia,

rise towards the light,

digging deep with my roots.

I draw from the earth, source of my strength.

Today I will bend when the wind gusts.

Faye Boland

Faye Boland won the Robert Leslie Boland Prize 2018, the Hanna Greally International Literary Award 2017 and placed third in the Bere Island Poetry Competition 2024. She was highly commended in the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition 2024. Her first poetry collection Peripheral was published in 2018.

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Flying over Drumlins in my Sleep