Trying to keep going as workhouse cook, weak as water,
Gone down a lot, witness to every Townland's famine slaughter.
Thin soup they get would hardly wet a blotter in a jotter,
By the day, surviving inmates more wizened, faces tauter.
For small share of watered down oats from Big Urn,
They line up, ragged caps-in-hand, hold out bowls in turn
For maybe Last Supper, as with infections stomachs churn.
Underneath, a few 'cippins' and wet 'ciarogs' refusing to burn.
Twenty dead yesterday, places taken by skeletons at the gate
Clamouring to be let in... for days nothing at all these ate.
In this misery-spate I try to feed a few, soften their fate.
'Til more souls are crated and buried, short will be the wait.
Dandelions-nettles in the mix... wild weed last resort resources.
Bacon-cabbage a pipedream, some berries foraged from hedge sources.
Life here nasty-brutish-short as disease through veins courses.
Even if main helper, small helpings for me, losing to diabolical forces.
- Cippins: Small pieces of sticks to light fires
- Ciarogs: Small bits of turf to fuel fires
