Mr McMahon – our Head of English wins National Poetry Prize at Stormont

As Light Leaves

When all of this comes to pass

I want it to fall in autumn

After a full summer

When gardens have been plumped

By brief showers and sunlight-

Fruit and flowers just on the verge

Of passing their prime,

The air a light bristle of distant lawnmowers,

Their baskets brimming

With what should be the last cut,

And the air scored with swifts and swallows

Not knowing if their imminent departure

Is really a leaving, really a going home.