This is Episode 78 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's poem is ""Hay", by Paul Muldoon.

Paul Muldoon is a Pulitzer Prize winning Irish poet. He has published 14 collections over half a century (indeed, 2023 is the 50th anniversary of his debut collection New Weather).

Like his near contemporary Seamus Heaney, Muldoon was born and raised in rural Northern Ireland, has been published by London publisher Faber & Faber throughout his career and has taught at both Oxford and the Ivy League (Heaney at Harvard, Muldoon at Princeton University, where he is, at the time of recording this episode, a Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Creative Writing).

This poem, "Hay", is from his 1998 collection of the same name. It speaks, to me at least, of the connection — ephemeral, atomic, undeniable — between us and the ground beneath us, between us and what the ground beneath us so routinely gives us in life, before it accepts us back in death.

⁠⁠You can read the poem here⁠⁠⁠.

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Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://onsound.eu/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com