Islands (2), Mull (5), Ulva
By outboard ferry to the island of the dead
and te things we can’t get away from,
information, restaurant, cold rain.
We take the track along the south coast, wild sea,
the remains of the villages. But the dead are not at home.
They have been cleared away, cleared out of mind.
Bay full of small islets, spirits fleeing in grey haze
and rain. What shall we leave behind, what empty shells
full of meaning? A hurt from Britain’s past assails me,
I don’t know why we don’t act or speak to the harm
why we are so bound up in our futures.
The people who know the dead and speak to them regularly
have lost their tongues. Notice their roofless houses, hear
their roofless mouths saying O and A to the desperate histories.
Return home over the sea, followed by those ominous birds
telling the world to think harder, feel further.
By outboard ferry to the island of the dead
and te things we can’t get away from,
information, restaurant, cold rain.
We take the track along the south coast, wild sea,
the remains of the villages. But the dead are not at home.
They have been cleared away, cleared out of mind.
Bay full of small islets, spirits fleeing in grey haze
and rain. What shall we leave behind, what empty shells
full of meaning? A hurt from Britain’s past assails me,
I don’t know why we don’t act or speak to the harm
why we are so bound up in our futures.
The people who know the dead and speak to them regularly
have lost their tongues. Notice their roofless houses, hear
their roofless mouths saying O and A to the desperate histories.
Return home over the sea, followed by those ominous birds
telling the world to think harder, feel further.