The poignant smell of whin blossom <br />mixed with turf smoke and Atlantic ozone. <br />We picked our way down a bouldered lane <br />onto a crunching Mayo beach <br />glittering and gull-loud. <br />I gripped their small hands <br />for fear they'd hurt themselves. <br /> <br />'What bird is that? ' they asked. <br />Some seabird lay dead among the stones. <br />I made up a name. Then a story, <br />of endless ocean flight; <br />of storms no man ever saw, <br />not even brave sailorboys <br />breasting to America <br />away, away from the blighted island. <br /> <br />'What else? ' they asked. <br />Fiction drained like sand <br />and I had to tell of Mayo men and Galway men <br />whose last-of-Ireland sighs <br />breezed ashore so long ago, <br />over these fatal Western rocks. <br /> <br />We chose a pebble to remind us <br />but there was never any need.<br /><br />James Mills<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/story-and-history/
