Coffin Ship

ground mist
the clicking knees of sheep
punctuate an afternoon

In the drizzly back-country of County Cork, I follow a tattered map
drawn by my great-great grandfather. From the parked rental car
I take my bearings.

As a lad of twelve, he sails from the port of Waterford in 1849.
His sister and mother die in the cargo hold, are buried at sea.
Eager and thin, he arrives in New York and serves two years of his indentured contract, then runs away to the gold mines of Montana.

naked berm
a pair of ravens peck
something shiny

I drive past lines of drying peat, stacked like tilted dominoes. Filling
my lungs with the heady scent of petrichor, I check his map again.

at a dead end
headstones too mossy to read
famine road

__________
Youmans, Rich (ed.), Contemproary Haibun, Vol 19.. Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2024

2023 San Francisco International Haibun Contest: Hon. Mention ​