Finisterre

That slim isthmus where one sea beats on the southern shore,
another sea at the northern, is called by sailors and strangers Finisterre
or, sometimes, Terra Nada. lt was there,
on that cold strip ot rock and broom and bright rag-weed that tour
hundred were run to ground,
motherless sons, widowers, the orphans of orphans, their gear
tossed on the fide or lost to the oftshore wind.

So much for gyromancy, so much for prayer

We went there next morning, the weather holding clear,
and made a ring, the faint-hearted hand-in-glove with the blind.
It wasn't long betore one of the women claimed to hear
a ditterence in the gulls' cries, something raw,
full-throated, a note so thick with fear
it took her breath and brought her to her knees. The air
was tull ot it then - evenyone heard it clear,
or said they did, and stood in awe
to be there as the legend rose and formed,
the skirl of the dead in our ears, their silt stll on the sand.