‘The Land Of Lonely Women’
© Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved.
The harbour is silent now,
‘Tis only the seagulls that cry.
Gone are the ghosts of yesteryear;
Banished are the Botany bound manacled,
Those that dared to feed their brood,
That uprooted the master’s turnip,
Gone are they to sore backs and sledgehammer.
Gone too… the shrieking wife.
The mothers that begged for mercy.
The children that wailed for flogged fathers,
Unfortunates that climbed the imperial gangway…
Cold were the beds of my tortured country.
Wet were their pillows with hopeless tears,
Stained was the straw where slept the deprived orphan,
And fearful were the damned that awaited their evicting knock.
Rosaries calmed, but prayer filled no stomachs.
Paid no rent nor cured the pain in sunken eyes,
The ditch hovel ended their grieving with a cruel mercy.
Forgive not, the creators of The Land of Lonely Women.
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