No Bougainvillea Here

No bougainvillea here, Wind and wave-tossed shores Know no such blossom. What blooms next stormy seas In western outposts far removed, Unknown to sun-soft living ? When silken purple drapes The open sky, and folds of grey And pastel blue hang mingled, Dark-mirrored in the land below, The daily reckoning may be heard, Another storm from off the ocean, Or might the sombre grey dissolve, Transformed with silvered promise Of brighter lengthening days ? For when the earth relents, As now it surely must, A universal sigh is breathed Across the waiting dormant land. As expectation stirs, the great unveiling. A curtain raised upon a glorious stage, As now the islands of the west With wondrous spectacle are blessed. To my mind, and for what it's worth, The flowering of the machair Is the greatest show on earth.