Shetland Poem by Mary Champion

From Scotland's mainland cross a hundred miles
to reach the limit of the British Isles.
A hundred scattered islands mark the margin
between the Northern sea and Western ocean.
Bare beauty spread beneath an endless sky,
where wild waves roll and crash and sea-gulls cry.
Skuas flocking round the rocks of Foula,
petrels, guillemots and seals on Mousa.
A windy climate, mild and wet, presides
o'er jagged rugged rocks and restless tides.
Low rolling hills are nestled in the sea
and nowhere, nowhere, nowhere grows a tree.

A treeless land left ancients with no say -
the stone with which they built does not decay.
Rich in fish and finest Shetland Wool.
In modern times sustained by North Sea oil.
I hear wild Nature's spirit as it cries,
'Come here and live beneath my boundless skies.'
But there can be no home or rest for me
where nowhere, nowhere, nowhere grows a tree.