Springy heather spreads across the land

masking the mazy web of sheep tracks,

so we are forced to forge our own tracks,

skirting pockets of scree and peaty patches.

 

At times we have to go back, seeking patches

of dry, stable footing in order to progress,

inching ever upwards, making slow progress

towards the razorback path joining the twin peaks.

 

We reach the top, walking between the peaks,

bracing ourselves against the Atlantic wind,

hunching backs to it, we find our second wind.

Pausing to look out towards the turbulent ocean,

 

the hordes of ancestors who crossed the ocean

are never far from thought, with echoes of the famine

that stripped our country of so many, a famine

that fuelled the diaspora, the vast migration

 

to distant lands whose future was built on migration,

a crucible that fused together new nations,

new civilisations, yet linking all those nations

with ties of blood and legend to this ancestral land.