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Famine, The Spirit of Place Programme – Swinford, County Mayo, July 10th ‘15 – a poem by Terry McDonagh, Irish Poet, Playwright and Writer.
I was asked to write a poem on the occasion of the unveiling of the memorial to the victims of the Great Famine in Ireland 1845, ‘46 and ‘47 . It was a time when several millions died or emigrated while those who could have helped went about their business of exporting grain that could have saved countless lives. This poem, FAMINE is my response.
Famine
The Spirit of Place Programme – Swinford, July 10th ’15
The dead are never far from us
and, now, in famine, our children
lie strewn on doorsteps
or along roadsides and we
are so far gone, there is
no chance we will recover
– even if we did, a
black stalk lies in waiting
like a preying cat on a windowsill.
Wit cannot drive suffering away.
Those potatoes that dug up
so clean and vibrant in a day,
diseased and fouled the fields
in a stream of pus before dawn
and
some landlords cried out,
we’ll give those peasants
nothing – for nothing
is what they’ve earned –
let them die. We’ll put them
out on the roads
to compete with the grain trade
in a race for great ships.
My family claw side by side
with snails and grubs
for the right to die with
grass and mud between our teeth.
We did attack the drills like
flocks of crows, hoping
to get to the food before
it festered, but the rot beat us
to the bite – the famine god
had sickened every stalk
from the birthplace of
our farthest ancestor
to the common grave
of our youngest child.
That death – untalkative and cold,
grabbed what it could.
What remained stayed as it was
or it was cast aside or overboard.
The lanes we lived up
were left behind to fall
into disuse and silence
forgotten
except on occasions
when communities walk
the sad walk – to try
to greet the past face to face.
© Terry McDonagh