The Icelandic connection - 01.09.2010, Page 36

86
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 63 #2
Poetry
by Thomas Thor Buchanan
Improvisation on Gimli
Quarterlight,
spilt from the grey jaws of the lake,
the day flashes its brindle coat.
I haven't been here in years, where the wind calmly scours the bones
And the landscape shows us its tonsure, its loose hair-shirt.
Where nothing climbs, any clear cathedral
Must be laid like rabbit fencing,
A heel-pressed grace.
I think of my grandmother
Crossing in her snowshoes
This atlas of snow
To visit the farm
Of an old Communist
Who showed her half-secret
Books whose pages were
Cut first in Russia
Carried hidden in
Apple crates stuffed with straw
Obscure teachers she sat
With under the brambles
Of a history
Drifting like flotsam.
She learned to hate guilt.