The Ghent Review Volume1, Number 1, summer 2016 | Page 15

iv
the unfathomable silences
of that great hunger squat
over the emptiness and lost noises
of these abandoned homeplaces
like an ache delves deep
into cold bones in damp weather
the track along our back wall
is gravelled now and hedged
its fucshia flowers in summer
the purest drops bloodred
line the way they had to take
that last walk of the undercounted
to what fate or where exactly
we'll never know or who they were
though names as sounds remain
as shadows of that desperate age
and language too was starved of breath
to name those deep iniquities
famine betrayed two peoples
set shame like a warning scar
a curse like the mark of cain
a chronic anger carried into exile
a groaning raised to keening pitch
enough to shake an empire
the country now is made new
that song and story have since
found the strength and voice
to break the long silence
the way spring bulbs spill colour
out of the dark ground of winter

it is as if étaín in another rebirth
walks again this forgotten track
she remembers her ancient love
in her wake she leaves wild flowers
a line to carry a memory
and anu's crows rise on thermals