St. Kilda Poem by Bill Wright

'Is there nobody living here now? ', we said,
Slowly walking along the path,
Gannets and fulmars screeching overhead,
Above the pristine, windswept grass.
There's only a lonely radar station,
Crewed by a handful of hardy men,
Forty miles from civilisation they live,
Blasted by Atlantic wind and rain.
St. Kilda wasn't always like this,
Less than a hundred years have gone,
Since two hundred simple folk lived here,
Surviving on gannets and oil and corn.
They dried their crops in drystone cleits,
Over a thousand still stand to see,
Only those and a few old ruins are left,
Skeletons of a thriving community.
The National Trust look after the Isles,
A few hundred visit each year,
Wandering around this deserted place,
How many ghostly voices do they hear?
Rest in peace St. Kilda,
A relic of days of yore,
Times have changed, we all move on,
And this village exists no more.