Boy by the Tree

              I watch him from my window
              propped against the tree.

              Two turnips,
              one cabbage and some nettles
              boil in the pot. How can I
              feed another soul?

              He does not move
              but leans, his head down
              his body still,
              hardly as old as my son.
              Surely we can spare some soup.
              "Bring him in for a bite,"
              I say.

              My son shakes the boy's arm
              and he slides down
              the trunk of the tree,
              his gruel spoon in his torn
              side pocket.


              Jean Flanagan

     

              *         *          *
        

              about the poem:

              "This poem is from my manuscript, Black Lightning, about the Great Irish 
              Hunger and immigration to Boston, Massachusetts."



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