Description Rodack
A breaker far from shore,
A tress of knotted wrack,
An oak tree from the shire
Became a ship, a wreck.
Famine ate her flesh,
Lightning lit her shroud,
Gave her to the fish
Where the blennies shoaled.
England built her engine,
Ireland filled her full,
Famine fuelled her ending
Granite gripped her hull.
Sea devoured a peerage,
Typhus strangled hope,
Nobles sunk with steerage,
Winkles grazed on rope.
Blight and salt beneath them,
Tide their only pulse,
Anemones shall wreath them
With flesh as red as dulse.
'Twas Christ who sealed their wager
And Mary gave them help,
But prayers sluiced with water
Are slippery as kelp.
Lyric by Giles Watson, 2010. Rodack is Irish Gaelic for ?seaweed growth on submerged wood?.
