Lost to the world on this finger of land
that claws its way into the open sea,
a village sleeps in the midday heat.
It has been slumbering here a long time,
a clutch of houses convulsed by age
and a century’s slow drift to elsewhere.
Children grew up in this place, their kingdom
the fields that run out into the Atlantic,
their roof the sun, the moon and the stars.
No-one now lives within these walls
or leans on half-doors, gazing at a life
the rest of us have long ago forgotten.
We are tourists here, casual daytrippers
content to scavenge around in a ghost town
at the end of the world, dimly disturbed
by something aeons ago in some shared past,
anxious to be started on the journey home.
This is about as far out as we choose to get.
