Phantom and matriarch of all,
she sits serene, dazed,
akin to our Virgin Mary
outside a decrepit dusty church,
a bowl of blue sky
tints her white dress
in hues of intense misery.

Far off, fathers, skin ruddied
as our barren mud,
dig graves in the crisp ground
and boy starvelings
eat the worms he unearths.

Famished mothers,
frail as sheaves of wheat,
boil water on grit stoves,
and warm their hands
over the copper kettle’s steam.

From first light to nightfall,
our Priests lead Requiem Masses
as whole generations
are mothered
into our land’s gathering dust.

A stone hallows our fathers names.
She is the land
and doesn’t want to see them go,
young men, afraid,
of unknown shores.
But the potato crop has failed
and Ireland bleeds youth in ghost ships.