for Kevin Patrick Dowling
Feeney, Ranger deserting King’s shilling
in Calcutta, returns home to find Great
Famine in Connemara, sees killing
of his nephew, frozen carcasses fate
of his sister and niece. His mother starved,
his brother hanged a year earlier, what’s
left but to seek justice as his knife carves,
his musket fells a slew of brutal Brits
and Irish traitors. “I kill, they call it
murder,” he tells Hannah. “They kill, they call
it war.” I think of you throughout, fillets
of images you’ve told of Éire, of souls
bone thin, naked. Here, so tragic their plight,
our eyes turn color film to black & white.
Roger Armbrust
March 30, 2020
