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Windswept (Iceland)

Monochrome deserts.
Volcanic sand blows gray in the cool wind
Lava rocks reach craggy hands from the grave
Palest yellow lichens crawl and cling
Rutted moonscapes race out to the endless horizon Green hills.
Rising up on all sides, at all times
A smatter of spruce here
A tumble of fallen rock there
Switchback roads scaling up, up, up
Puffs of white sheep, defying gravity, polka dot verdant verticals Steaming pools.
The stench of sulfur wafting upward
Black sand gives way to raw, hot, amber soil
The ground alive and smoking
Gushing, bubbling, bursting geysirs
Escaping the earth's molten depths Tie-dyed mountains.
Deep autumn hues of maroon, copper and ochre
Streaked with cool blue-gray and slate green
Strung together in a line
Banded brazenly in their shared strangeness Black beaches.
Sand dark as night
Ebony arches thrust out of bluest oceans
Columns of basalt, sculpted by volcanic gods
Perfect hexagonal cylinders, towering over the shore Pounding water.
Coursing through ancient gorges
Carved by ages of meltwater
Frothing gray in the afternoon clouds
Thundering downwards hundreds of feet
Before winding peacefully away into the distance Frosty blues.
Turquoise popsicles jutting out of falling glaciers
Icebergs split open to reveal candy-aqua inside
Lakes and lagoons milky azure
Their depths hiding history, slimy silica, and secrets Orange beaks.
On flying, waddling, tumbling
Hiding, hopping, snoozing
Fish-collecting, dive-bombing
Cliff-nesting penguins of the north: puffins The blonde bangs of a brown Icelandic horse
The cod dangling in a shack by the sea
The roof of a turfhouse long abandoned
The wrecks of so many ships who got too close
My hair, across my eyes
My heart, to see all of this

Posted by Kristyn at 5:07 AM