Once in Iceland

tired ears gather the glooms of the evening, long waves of women-laughter, breeze-carried

Once in Iceland

Yellow eyes
follow the bleating sheep
at the edge
of the glacier-melt,
refreeze
in vacancy and darkness,
stooping and silent
among the small stones.

The tired ears
gather the glooms of the evening,
long waves of women-laughter,
breeze-carried;
in their silence between them
their tired voices
want to be stroked
to be woven and cast back
into the faint echo
of the moon's wind.

The tired hands
of the muddy man
hold the weathered crucifix
in the calm of dusk,
with a yellow eye
he caresses the black she-cat,
the mouldering root,
the road before him,
the flowering growth.

© Kåre Enga [169.105] 25 september 2012

27 lines

Note: Phrases come from three Icelandic poems: "Copernicus" by Hannes Pétursson, "The sheep roundup" by Jón Óskar and "A black she-cat" by Matthias Johannessen. The prompt at Poetry Club was to find senses in a poem. I chose a bunch and wove them into my own poem. In "Once in Iceland [169.105]" .