Friday 5 December 2008

The Potato famine saga from Ruthann Gill

My friend Ruthann Gill has responded to JK Gayle's and David Ker's saga challenge. But hey she doesn't have a blog yet - though I already know what it should be called if she did: puzzle. Anyway here's what she wrote:

I couldn't come up with a life story using just 50 words. So, I wrote another poem around one I had written before about The Hunger in Ireland and how if my ancestors hadn't made it out I would not be here today as who I am ... I think of all those children in Africa and India, around the world actually, families dying by the thousands and I know we, as a human race, have not advanced at all with using hunger, water, and death to displace, wound, and eliminate not only generations but whole peoples. And so, here it is

The Great Hunger

‘taint easy living in wounded spaces
living in the wakes of our own broken places
walking through hillsides of old death remembered
flailing death
fractured peace where
there but for - what grace of God they lie?
I have to greet inside myself
whispered thanks for
ancestors spared this passing-by remembrance

2 Comments:

J. K. Gayle said...

You're not the only one who's glad you are here because your ancestors made it through. Thank you, Ruthann Gill, for sharing your poem. We will read your blog when you begin it.

David Ker said...

Terrific. I'm going to have to collect these all together and republish them since they're spread far and wide on the blogosphere.