Special Feature: "Bilberry Sunday" by the Editor

Bilberry Sunday

Steven Wittenberg Gordon

Early in the morning the last Sunday in July

I joined the other young lads from county Fermanagh

in climbing to the summit of Binlaughlin Mountain

in search of bilberries for the harvest festival--

we knew all the fair lasses would be doing so too.

It would be such a rare treat to be able to meet

with them unseen by the prying eyes of their parents.

My brother claimed his wife on a Bilberry Sunday

seven years past, and I hoped to accomplish the same.

When we reached the peak we found the girls already there

sitting in a circle, transfixed by the voice of a

sleek talking horse that I knew was the fabled pooka.

The beast spoke in old Gaelic of which none of them could

have understood nary a word.  As the lads and I

watched in stunned shock, the most beautiful lass of them all,

the one whom I secretly desired for my own,

stripped to the skin and in a bound mounted the creature.

She rode away laughing and was never seen again. 

Poet's Notes:  This is another poem inspired by Irish folklore--being half Irish, the inspiration is perhaps genetic.  The most difficult part of the composition of this poem was keeping each line to thirteen syllables and concentrating on the rhythm of the syllables rather than poetic feet.