Ruth Parker
Terra Non-Firma
Iceland wears its heart on its sleeve:
It is not buried under miles of sheltering rock
as in older, quieter lands;
no, the heart’s pulsing can be felt
all over this strange territory
and where it overflows, blasting its way
through glacial mountains, snakily scorching down
it leaves, when cool at last,
an ashy, clinker landscape.
And even where no lava flows
still the land writhes and gasps
as though an obscene beast is stirring
beneath the scabrous crust,
squirming, gurgling, snorting,
belching belligerently,
farting sulphurously,
working its way up to the crescendo
of a gigantic S-N-E-E-Z-E
a cathedral spire of boiling geyser
which then subsides, spurts up once more
and retreats unwillingly into an angry sloshing
like some satanic cauldron,
Sorcerer’s Apprentice-like, out of control
preparing for the next climactic gush.
The people here walk on their fragile earth
with wide, confident strides,
aware of the ground’s heave and cracking,
of the land’s slow but violent splitting.
If I lived here, I feel I’d have to walk
in fear and trembling – always on tip-toe.
Page(s) 31
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