10-18-2016, 07:19 AM
Easter Ross 1836
Fifty years after the clearances began
an unholy trinity stalks the glens:
Eviction, Poverty, Famine
The blind sennachie warns us
Make signs against evil eye
too late; the Great Sheep
is already here.
From their pulpits, preachers
denounce our wickedness
His providence and mercy
has sent this scourge
to bring you to repentance
and leave us to starve,
freezing to death in our fields
or burned alive in our homes;
whole villages,
whole bloodlines
annihilated in the time
it takes to nail doors shut
set fire to the cottage
and move on to the next
leaving no one to grieve,
no tears, no stones
placed over our bones:
just summer grass,
winter snow, wind
off the lochs
and the Great Sheep’s dung.
I was reminded of this poem when I read the Irish famine poem on a thread earlier. I wrote it years ago, just pulled it out again. Any ideas welcome.
Fifty years after the clearances began
an unholy trinity stalks the glens:
Eviction, Poverty, Famine
The blind sennachie warns us
Make signs against evil eye
too late; the Great Sheep
is already here.
From their pulpits, preachers
denounce our wickedness
His providence and mercy
has sent this scourge
to bring you to repentance
and leave us to starve,
freezing to death in our fields
or burned alive in our homes;
whole villages,
whole bloodlines
annihilated in the time
it takes to nail doors shut
set fire to the cottage
and move on to the next
leaving no one to grieve,
no tears, no stones
placed over our bones:
just summer grass,
winter snow, wind
off the lochs
and the Great Sheep’s dung.
I was reminded of this poem when I read the Irish famine poem on a thread earlier. I wrote it years ago, just pulled it out again. Any ideas welcome.