Somewhere near Mullingar on the third or fourth day,
a thin boy of five or so stood by the road
dropping stones in a famine pot one by one
with a satisfying ping, each metallic plink
raising the level a fraction
like an inverted burial cairn
piled by a dead chieftain’s followers.
I was walking to fill in generations,
so I watched while the clangs became clacks
and each falling stone brought a person
gripping the rim with sharp brittle fingers,
lifting themselves out on starvation legs
to join a procession back the way I had come
towards Dublin and wide new continents.
When I looked back, the pot was full and the boy was gone,
so I turned and walked on towards Mullingar.
Published in Unapologetic
S.C. Flynn 