Guest Poem by Christine McNeill

Christine McNeill has published six books of poetry – and a new collection, The Breath of Time was published in autumn 2023. A selection of translated German verse, Across a Sheet of Paper, was published by Shoestring Press in 2022. She has also co-translated (with Patricia McCarthy) Rilke’s The Book of Hours (Agenda Editions). This poem is from Acumen 107.

Alive

That wet April evening,
so vivid in memory;

how we marvelled
at the trees’ branches intertwined

as things connect when we look back

and a mirror dropping off the wall
without being touched

we laughed off

and unknowingly each year
pass the date of our death
and stay alive,

opening our senses
to rain nourishing the earth.