Easter Ross 1836

[RiverNotch]

Easter Ross 1836            
 
 
Fifty years after the clearances began I'm sorta missing a comma.
an unholy trinity stalks the glens:
 
Eviction, Poverty, Famine And a period.
 
The blind sennachie warns us
Make signs against evil eye And a "the".
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; I think instead of a semicolon, this should be a comma.
 
whole villages,
whole bloodlines
annihilated in the time
it takes to nail doors shut And a comma here, too.
set fire to the cottage And another one.
and move on to the next And another one.
 
leaving no one to grieve,
no tears, no stones
placed over our bones: And another one.
just summer grass,
winter snow, wind
off the lochs
and the Great Sheep’s dung.

I agree that this is already very tight -- most of what I've given you, and perhaps what else I can give you, will be small, some of them nits instead of lice. Lovely, lovely.