The old dark machine pulls and it shakes It shudders when the earth quakes Entertaining no form of rain Though the ground is wet in vain And no grass grows up to meet The pavement that they call a street And somehow I see it in her eyes The part of her that dies Every time the house is empty And I was just a girl of twenty When I realised That everybody dies Slowly but not all the same Some are not even given a name As in their mother’s womb they lie And she in grief because they try and try For so long to bequeath a child Now all they’re left with is the wild Of the Burren sparse and grey Though beauty in its own way Will rise up through the crevice crack From a life they can’t get back As they grasp and struggle and refrain I didn’t know that I could forgive the pain