Commemorating the Tuam Babies

Tomb Babies

I walk among the righteous reeds
And weave a Brigid's cross
And, fisted, brandish at the wind
And witness Brigid's loss

She laid her cloak upon the Earth
To soften childish stumbles
Now tarpaulin upon a hearse
As spire and tower crumble

The cloak broke falls of crooked folk
Who Upright couldn't stand
Clawing dogged holes into the Earth
To hide from reprimand
And cloaked in saintly goodness

That the festered spirit drew
From the well of adoration
An acrid power grew

No rockabye, no lullaby
Caressed the bone white bars
Once gripped by forlorn baby fists
While garrotter stood guard

Now picks will pierce the nursery
And cries will once more crack
Skulls cribbed in bone white cradles
And blanketed by sack

Forget-Me-Nots and Baby's Breath
Will spring from fertile soil
As withered stalks of righteous reeds
From public eye recoil

And bowed heads mutter penance
By the fretted counting beads
Of the abacus
That never heard
The sequence

1 - 2 - 3

Aoife Manley is an Irish student studying at Northeastern University in Boston.