The Hungry Grass
The Hungry Grass
Note: It is a common belief in Ireland that anyone
who steps on a famine grave will have the strength sucked from their body by the hungry bones underneath Crossing the shallow holdings high above seaWhere few birds nest, the luckless foot may passFrom the bright safety of experienceInto the terror of the hungry grass. Here in a year when poison from the airFirst withered in despair the growth of springSome skull-faced wretch whom nettle could not saveCrept on four bones to his last scattering, Crept, and the shrivelled heart which drove his thoughtTowards platters brought in hospitalityBurst as the wizened eyes measured the milesLike dizzy walls forbidding him the city. Little the earth reclaimed from that poor bodyAnd yet remembering him the place has grownBewitched and the thin grass he nourishesRacks with his famine, sucks marrow from the bone.
