Synge on Aran
Salt off the sea whets
the blades of four winds.
They peel acres
of locked rock, pare down
a rind of shriveled ground;
bull-noses are chiseled
on cliffs.
…………..Islanders too
are for sculpting. Note
the pointed scowl, the mouth
carved as upturned anchor
and the polished head
full of drownings.
…………………………There
he comes now, a hard pen
scarping in his head;
the nib filed on a salt wind
and dipped in the keening sea.
by Seamus Heaney
from Death of a Naturalist
Faber and Faber, 1996