Fields of my Heart

Introduction

The devastation has made an appearance again.

The Blight.

Last September my Father came to learn that our little farm plot of potatoes was growing with disease and with all our hope and prayers it has returned again.
We had thought we were safe but the smell and black colour has soon brought us back to reality.

We live in a little home ,walls of earth and stone, and roofs of thatch. Seven of us squeeze in to our one room home, but it is home of love. My Mother and Father sleep near the entrance, I sleep near the fire on the right side with 3 year old sister Erin and my 2 brother sleep on the left side of the fire Tadgh 12 and Sean 15.
My 20 year old brother Liam left 6 months ago in hopes to find a job in the city after his promised love set sail for America.

We are tired, cold and hungry and not sure how we are going to make it through the winter. The blanket of white frost cast a cold in the air as the once soggy ground now crunches under my feet. The glow of orange and yellow dances on the walls of home as I make my way through the wooden door.
I feel the heat in my bones after a days work of picking nettles. Nettle soup has become our only substance and some berries in the morning .The sound of our slurps echo through our home, too tired to speak and a heavy heart tires our souls.

My mother's disheveled face catches my eye tonight.
Her once glowing face has become grey with sunken cheekbones prominent on her face.

Erin lays her head on our mothers lap, her tiny body shaking like a leaf and her skin hot to touch.Her cheeks burn a crimson colour as her tiny hands convey the colour blue.
Mother combs through Erin's hair as she repeats Hail Mary over and over.This scene has become all to common for us every home in the surrounding lands have seen this on eachothers door step.

With hunger has come disease and death, of the mind body and soul.