'An tOcras Mór' The Great Hunger.

By Sister Anne Therese Dillen

I thirst beside the heather-laden bogs –

no samaritan for me;

no one here to see

that I shall die amidst the

plenty, in the field –

and that its yield

will sail to shores beyond the sea.

How can it be

that flocks of sheep can find their fill

while I lie empty and in pain?

or is it vain

to beg attention to my plight?

How can I fight

when I am listless, drained alone,

shrunken to the bone

while others eat what I have

grown in toil?

Woman of the soil –

I fade against a wall of human greed

and - sower of the seed –

I languish as it grows...

A poignant poem depicting the lack of redemption and seems to invert the biblical parable "As you sow, so shall ye reap and applys this to Ireland's big hunger.  When it was the Irish which made ready the land and the crops yet reaped starvation, exodus and death.  The poems clearly depicts An gorta mor as a time in Ireland when the sheep held more status than the Irish land workers as the sheep were permitted to reap life  from the soil.  The Irish that worked and farmed the land  returned to the soil like humus. 

It is a short poem but filled with such depth and meaning.  I loved it thanks for posting it.

Yes these poems deliver an image that haunt you in every way , its the camera of the times