The Unbearable Sadness of Ruins

First sighted cresting a northern sea swell,
it emerges from the haze of a radiant May morning,
banded silver and white, striped green and gold;
a semi-mythical Misty Isle hung between sea and sky.

Closer in, rounding the harbour's curving bay,
the colours of glamour fade to nature's mortal hues
of sun-struck grass and gorse, and tumbled stones,
smoothed by countless seasons to romantic ruins.

Soft in the spring sun, the land wears it's wild beauty well;
Emerald downs, gleaming sands and snow white cliffs
evoke the paradise those sturdy souls first saw
braving the northern seas in search of their Avalon.

But linger till evening summons the twilight mists down the hill,
the wind whispers a dirge to harrow the hardest heart
and the lost voices keening through the rapidly darkening air,
of this world or the next, stir ancient memories in the blood.

Until the soft sea surge calls forth the tenebrous shadows
gathering in the crumbling corners of the hollow houses,
to shape the shades of those long-lost to life's warmth
and strike you with the unbearable sadness of ruins.