The Irish hare

Our Wild Irish hare


Mythical, magical,

Elusive creature,

Stuff of legend,

Iconic feature.


In Hibernia’s landscape

She takes pride of place,

Elusive and wraithlike,

A portrait of grace.


From meadow and sand dune

To wild mountain peak,

She’s genetically Irish

And this makes her unique.


From the far distant past,

Through the ice age she comes

With a plea for asylum

In her ancestral home.


Since time has been young

Many stories were told

Of her magical ways

And courage so bold.


Goddess of moon

And feminine soul,

She brings us fertility

In her mythical role.






And when Easter time comes,

Tho’ the winter’s been cruel,

She brings us the promise

Of life’s sweet renewal.


She is beauty incarnate,

So wild and so free,

As part of our heritage,

Her survival is key.


But her numbers are dwindling

And falling so fast,

She may never recover

Tho’ she’ll fight to the last.


If we wish that our children

On nature’s pageant may gaze,

As hares playfully caper

Or peacefully graze.


In meadows and fields,

Free from poison and plough,

We have to wake up

And we have to act now..


For a future without her

Would be soulless and bare,

She is part of our heritage-

Our wild Irish hare.


© M Brown

Moon-gazing hare


Thru shadows,

Shapeshifting,

Wise-woman

Guised,

She slips

Amongst

Our dreams.

Bold spirit,

Wild, unbound,

Forever

Roams the land,

As moonstruck hare,

Moon-gazing.

Mesmerised,

By midnight’s

Moonbeams ,

She wistfully

Scans the heavens,

As her

Lonely,

Earthbound soul

Forever,

Yearns,

For home.


© M Brown