Love Letter to Iceland
When gravity forced your sky down flat,
dripping down between the trees
till it fluttered right above our heads
you didn’t mind,
just held on tight to your gritty soil
squeezing in time with your heartbeat.
You carry the past in the air
like an invitation–
tendrils of moments lost to time
are hidden within trees, like sparks,
lying in wait to be struck…
and when I hold my head up to the bark
I can hear them.
With knowing hands
you rinsed out my skull with glacier water
so I could remember how to think,
froze my bones
and let me be still,
so when I thawed
I remembered how to move,
thatI had marrow and blood and everything I needed.
Thank you
for making me whole again,
for letting me whisper my secrets into your air
and carrying them far, far away,
somewhere across that flat sky.
(From a Saga) II. Γιώργος American Sonnet
This sea,
his water is melded around my bones
the glue that holds me together
salt sloshing around my spine,
I’m craving it,
happy to open up my insides and scoop
salt water out with a spoon,
with a little stringy organ meat too.
I burden myself under your reign,
taking that holy, holy communion
reading the scriptures that sit
in the cracks of the rocks,
to prepare for the second coming,
the arrival of new bones, or the departure of old flesh.
Madison Moscrip is a South Texas-based author aspiring travel writer with a passion for capturing the natural and human world in action.She graduated from the North East School of the Arts high school program in 2022, and looks forward to her future as an emerging artist, and then, hopefully, go on to become a real artist. When she's not busy getting her cat to budge off her laptop, she enjoys a good day of fishing. She can be contacted on Instagram via @evermaddie.
"Glacial Lake at Foot of Myradsjokull" by meiburgin is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
