Icelandic Pauses

Figured I'd bring back the poetry a bit with this one. It's also a throwback to the trip we took to Iceland last March. Everywhere I go makes an impression onto who I am becoming. Iceland is no exception.

Icelandic Pauses


I remember that night
when we landed
It was snowing like hell
You tried to pull those heavy bags,
all of them
for me
But you couldn't do it
The sidewalks were wet and icy

I remember staring out the window
into sheer nothingness
coated in a sheet of ice and snow
I remember that corrugated yellow tin building
It was so Scandinavian, so foreign
that I felt released,
tangibly intrepid

I remember the smell of sulphur
in hot showers and instant coffee
and a little box of sugar cubes in the
clear Ikea cabinets
I remember eating hamburgers and quick oats
with cinnamon and sugar
but I don't remember minding

I remember Emiliana Torrini,
the soundtrack to our trip across the moon
and other places
The black beaches near the white mountains
and I remember feeling overwhelmed
With the starkness
wanting to sink into those empty stretches of beach
and emerge when you can surf at midnight
Who would ever find me there?

I remember feeling the
Reykjavik winter winds on my face
when I looked to the sky to see stars
and instead saw the Northern Lights
I remember politics with Icelanders
and skyr and cheap cookies,
hot cocoa when it was most needed
in my life

I remember dancing in our apartment, drinking
Icelandic vodka, classy stuff,
making love on the sofa
All these things I remember
as clear as glacial ice
as clear as the nearly frozen water
that we snorkeled in
in that continental divide

We are one
you and I
and you knew from the start
we'd be nomads