WHINLANDS All year round the whin Can show a blossom or two But it's in full bloom now. As if the small yolk stain >From all the birds' eggs in All the nests of the spring Were spiked and hung Everywhere on bushes to ripen. Hills oxidize gold. Above the smoulder of green shoot And dross of dead thorns underfoot The blossoms scald. Put a match under Whins, they go up of a sudden. They make no flame in the sun But a fierce heat tremor Yet incineration like that Only takes the thorn. The tough sticks don't burn, Remain like bone, charred horn. Gilt, jaggy, springy, frilled This stunted, dry richness Persists on hills, near stone ditches, Over flintbed and battlefield. -- Seamus Heaney