Selected Writings
Reynisfjara: resilience
In a tiny crack
in the layers
of weeping black rock
She flowers
despite the elements.
Nourished by the rain
and the rare
glimpses of sun
and strengthened
by the wind
that has not
broken her
She has found a place to
root down
to flourish
to reach towards the
gray sky.
Fjardarglujufur: revelation
A gash in the green earth
A canyon
A rift
that cleaves
the landscape of my soul.
Lofty walls of
harsh black rock
a gaping wound.
In its depths
the water flows
curves, eddies, swirls
around boulders
pools into pockets of stillness
all the while
smoothing
rough edges.
.
And though
I may wish it to be so
The severed cliffs
will never merge
will never fuse their
two
broken
halves.
But
Beauty
is only present in
the existence
of the fracture:
an inescapable
part of the whole
submitting
opening
inviting
movement
to the next beyond.
Distilled
There he lies, covered in a green and blue quilt. He is a man distilled: distilled only to that which is needed for life to continue at its most basic level – skin, bones, beating heart, fluid-filled lungs. He is a man distilled to his essence: though he struggles to speak in the moments the morphine wears off, his humor shines through. He jokes about not going to Las Vegas in 3 weeks. When his grandchildren are envious that his final form of sustenance is chocolate milkshakes, he whispers, “Let them have milkshakes. As many as they want.”
Mostly he sleeps. The ticking clock and his labored breathing are the only sounds in the room. Sometimes it is three seconds, sometimes four, between his breaths.
-Excerpt from a longer work