st kilda scotland

[sweetwater]

The Sabbath was a day
of intolerable gloom

someone in the camera department
find the sound guy to raise the rooftops
and booms

At the clink of the bell
the whole flock hurry
to Church as they were in a hurry

with sorrowful looks
and many a frayed book
eyes bent upon the ground.

It is considered sinful to look
to the right or to the left

By some date recorded
in the annals of some archive
and archivist that only the church
recorded

the population
had risen and reached
a moment of clarity

and by the end of the century
This figure remained as druid
temples made of stone

before the islanders emigrated
aboard a sea of opportunity
elsewhere

a loss from which the island
never fully recovered

today it stands
in the semblance
of historical reference

as the idyllic tourist and scrapbook
can attest to display
as photograph

the architectural
splendour

of a hard life in the joy
of simplicity

the elements
the wind and rain
and sea