The St. Kildans Poem by David Cooke

Old photos soften the lines on their creased
faces, the indelible imprint of seasons.
They are ranged before me, The Bird People,
in a phoney pose for tourists, well used
to taking shillings from those who travel
in style to a rock the Atlantic stuns.

For so many years they have kept their pact
of silence, still smiling at us wryly
with a tolerant, incurious stare
behind which their isolation is perfect.
What primal trust sustained existence there,
knowing only the waves' dull history?

Before the intrigued arrived in steamers
from a world of bricks and big ideas
they had subsisted on meagre holdings
by eating the oily flesh of fulmars;
their harvest the cracking of skulls and wings,
their economy founded on feathers.

Slowly revolving around manse and kirk,
they had learned a zealot's unyielding law.
Subdued by the yoke of harsh religion,
strict observance undermined their work.
A punishing God wiped out their children
and gave that grief their patience was made for.