~KIM BRIDGFORD~

ICELAND

---

 

The surface is both green and tipped with ice,
Its rocks like tortured lovers in the air.
Its flowers in the north are like the trace
Of women pinning grief up in their hair.

Its history speaks of families making claim
And poetry that helps to make a name
For kings of Europe.  Out of the battle's grave,
Poetry will salvage what's to save.

Reykjavik's a palette flung to dry,
The weather never one thing or another.
It is a place of woven ancestry,
With people's names reflective of their father,

And down the middle the shiver of a line
Like a drying fish with sunlight on its spine.

© by Kim Bridgford