Peopled since the Bronze Age;
now, pots and pans, tables and chairs,
they left the island,
left it a great yawning emptiness.
But old Thomas Lacey was not to be moved;
not while the spirits of his boatman sons
coursed the island’s winds; their bodies, perhaps,
still rowing back from Bofin.
And when all were gone,
and no October lights shone from the windows,
he set the fire, made dinner for himself and his sons
and left the door ajar.
He ate alone;
the great hungry tide reverberating across the island,
answerless and unrepentant;
he sat with dwindling hope, then went to bed.
But they came later in the night;
strong, smiling and unchanged after all the years.
They had rowed their boat home to their gleaming island;
and built a house that would forever be close.
Next morning, he woke to peace.
The wind across the island carried the salt of the sea;
he looked over to Bofin; it was as it had always been
and would be without him.
