The Disappearing Skelligs

(On reading Billy Collins at the edge of the ocean)

Since I sat down with my stylus 

and unwaxed tablet

the Skelligs have appeared

 and disappeared several times.

Perhaps off on a space mission

with Hans Solo or Luke Skywalker in control.

Maybe circling the globe

at 17,500 miles an hour,

(don't ask me what that is in kilometres)

The fastest moving islands in history

passing over our heads

once every ninety minutes.

And here they are back again

looking just a tad outraged at my speculations

As if they haven't just now

in low earth orbit

witnessed sixteen sunrises

and sunsets

just for the hell of it.

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2026

House Sitting

 

 

House sitting for a friend in Tuosist

I awake before you to enjoy an hour or two

of creative bliss, if it happens to arrive,

and admire a panoramic slice of Kerry-

burgeoning rhododendron, sunflower-yellow whin

fields uninterrupted by high rise,

except for the distant peaks of the reeks

that etch a crooked trail across the sky.

 

And via WhatsApp I tell my friend in San Sebastian,

whose house I am sitting,

to look out for the dude wearing the traditional txapela

finger- thinned to a peak at the front

speaking Basque to his retriever and the waiter

while sipping his café solo.

 

And that I have researched the history of her house

and find that it was indeed a dispensary

doleing out physic and herbs

to the rural poor of the townland in 1856.

 

And that I have travelled even further back in time,

to the Bronze Age, in fact,

for here in Tuosist there are eight stone circles

and a plethora of fulachta fias, cooking pits of the deer.

 

And so I have imagined myself a bronze age dude

gathering stones the size of baby’s head,

heating them white hot and dropping them in a water pit,

now bubbling to a rolling boil, to cook my straw wrapped venison,

twenty minutes to the pound and 20 minutes extra.

 

At which point I begin to wonder

if you are ever going to get up

so that we can put on the kettle for tea

and maybe boil our eggs

three minutes each

and not a second longer.

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2026

Gifting Socks

 

The Problem of Gifting Socks

 

When it comes to the subject of socks

and who gets the pair

I’ve just rolled off the assembly line

it’s not always a question of Que sera, sera.

 

Privately I cross my fingers and my five needles

for a recipient who will appreciate my long hours

spent at the coalface with my double pointed tools.

Someone who is perhaps in need of a foot-lift

or at least celebrating a propitious moment

or serendipitously just happens to call by

 

To be gifted with a Blue Lagoon or a Silent Night

or a Peacock, a Kingfisher or  Wild Pheasant

not to mention a Rainbow or a Norse God.

(For the wool merchant’s market-speak stretches wide these days.)

 

 I could just hoard them in a basket

to be gift wrapped and labelled at Christmas time-

For there’s Nutmeg and Hollyberry and even Mulled Wine.

 

But they are like hot coals in my hand

devices about to explode,

or to put it more benignly,

hot loaves fresh from the oven.

In short- products to be launched at speed,

with or without the hype.

 

But I do need to think twice about those Norse gods

before I roll out that line.

For who wants to wear the hammer wielding Thor

or the wolf giant Skoll on their feet

doomed to relentless war mongrelling

or chasing the sun goddess across the sky?

 

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2026. All rights reserved.