Pewter

Awakening to the metallic chatter of late starlings
on Rosemount's mossy rooftops,
the night's pewter veil lifts slowly with the fog.

An old garden at the bottom of a seaside hill,
derelict, abandoned; beautiful,
and all around tourists capture loosening
moments on film.

Loneliness crept through my bones
and dragged me into the ivy,
and there he was, sound echoing out
in that folkloric way
-woodsman/ bird; woodpecker.

I allowed the red of him
to reflect out
the last of the scene's winter rays,
before the morning came. 

White

Iceland, Spring 2013

and yet there is such stillness; buried deep.

Meirge

Last night I dreamed
of heavy rain
-decaying, rhythmic, beautiful,
pounding on an old tin roof.
That northern sky, dark as buried mines,
filled slowly with rusty green dancers;
every lamp in the house was lit.

Alft

I knew that there would be mountains.

Vast, volcanic; violet hues grasping at grey snow-light.

The rift, too, long imprinted on the map on my inside, certain;

almost known.

The moss, botanical expression of courage

alongside memories of horses, brown and wild.

This land of fire and ice; etched in columns of basalt on my mind.

Pink-footed geese fill the fields

and fly powerfully above me; filling the sky with wonder.

And then they appear, against a backdrop 

of wooden Church and cotton bog-land;

elusive and melancholic as the dancing lights .

Painted cream and yellow by the snow and sun;

back from Alba.

No words can frame this moment.

I will hold it, like ice in my hands,

until the Winter comes back home.

West

Iceland

Iceland, Spring 2014.

Words and drawings.

West

Paths wind and meander
through passes made from ice and saga;
a fierce and fragile beauty.

Moss, greener than growth ,
covers volcanic rock;
spills onto damp paper
-circles in Icelandic clay.

Light, white as time/
soft as morning;
stillness atop ancient triangles.

Feathers on wet basalt
as time refracts off
blue spring;
life.

You stand beside a map of glacial water
as I collect elements
in my ice cold hands.