Five Poems by Ursula O’Reilly

 

GOOD SAMARITAN?

 

Why do you turn the other cheek,

As suffering souls walk by?

You saunter on the other side.

Good Samaritan, puffed with pride.

 

Why do you speak the words of one

Whose love is not confined?

You call on Him, but He observes

The depths within your heart.

 

You are already known by He

Who knows each mortal soul.

You speak His words eloquently,

Flawless example to us all.

 

Why do you turn the other cheek,

As suffering souls walk by?

Good Samaritan? But too proud,

To view them in the eye.

NIGHTFALL  

 

Evening, quiet as a cat,

Creeps in search of a warm bed.

Darkness seeps like smoke.

Into crevasses, into corners,

Into houses and neat back yards.

Between trees in the forest.

Spreading its thick blanket,

Lulling life to sleep.

 

Stillness falls.

Wild creatures retreat to lairs.

Birds settle their feathers for sleep.

Nocturnal creatures, alert, sharp-eyed,

Hunt for prey.

The day departs like a snake,

Slithering silver,

Leaves nightfall in its wake.

 

The world shifts.

Night awakens.

HAVE YOU SEEN

 

In isolated forest,

By river chill and deep.

Have you seen him there,

Moving beneath the trees?

 

Briefly visible, then gone.

A shifting spectral form.

Silver flash in darkness,

A brilliance of wild eyes.

 

Hoofs softly thudding

Upon the forest floor

Pale moonbeams defining

A delicate silver horn.

 

Have you seen him there?

Have you seen the unicorn?

STORM  

 

The rain is pounding

Tears onto my windowpane.

Oozing tears into

The abandoned forest.

 

Wind wails in the treetops.

The forest sways and creaks,

Anticipating the worst.

Water soaks leaves and grass.

 

The waterlogged earth groans.

Stout storm clouds gather,

Soon to burst.

The storm will happen.

 

But it will pass,

As it always does.

PHOTOGRAPH

Light was vivid that day. People now gone,

Were not yet lost. Faithful dog at my feet.

Father’s brown eyes, and his quiet way.

Mam smiling in the sun, sisters laughing.

All together before shadows crept.

Stole away that time, leaving only

A distant memory, a fading photograph.

Ursula O’Reilly is a writer/artist living in County Cavan, Ireland. She is the author of numerous poems and short stories. Her tales are drawn from life experiences, fairy stories and mythology, and people/events, real or imagined.

Ursula’s work has appeared online and in various literary magazines including: ‘Dawntreader Magazine’, ‘Vita Brevis Press’, ‘The Literary Yard’, ‘Poetry Plus magazine’, ‘Woman’s Way magazine’, ‘Young Ravens Literary Review’, ‘Otherwise Engaged Literary and Arts Journal’, ‘Personal Bests Journal’, ‘The Green Shoe Sanctuary’ and by ‘Southern Arizona Press’.