HUNGRY GRASS Crossing the shallow holdings high above sea Where few birds nest, the luckless foot may pass >From the bright safety of experience Into the terror of the hungry grass. Here in a year when poison from the air First withered in despair the growth of spring Some skull-faced wretch whom nettle could not save Crept on four bones to his last scattering; Crept, and the shrivelled heart which drove his thought Towards platters brought in hospitality Burst as the wizened eyes measured the miles Like dizzy walls forbidding him the city. Little the earth reclaimed from that poor body; But yet, remembering him, the place has grown Bewitched, and the thin grass he nourishes Racks with his famine, sucks marrow from the bone. -- Donagh MacDonagh (1912-1968)