On a New Year's Day in Reykjavik
I stood at the very top of that old city,
intending to visit the Cathedral there.

All at once, there it was. And it was in charge.

A gust of wind so strong that it grabbed and
  slid me, speeding across several metres of ice,
only to slam, face first, into the broad chest
of a resident British Embassy staffer.

Genially, he smiled down and introduced
himself with gentlemanly aplomb.
No wonder they had an empire. At least for a while.

Oh, that wind! Ever seen snow moving horizontally?
Or felt a hole being drilled, in one ear, almost out the other?

Deep in the ancient countryside, on the way to the sea,
is a lonely valley, held captive by the power of a brutal
Gigantic troll. There, this wind has its greatest rival.

Even if you can't see them, just tell me you don't feel them...

In Reykholt now, that bullying wind buffets a cozy house,
but to no avail, for angels watch over a newborn baby girl.

Her mother, just a girl when we first met,  
now sings tenderly to her own new daughter.
Both are princesses of this beautiful island country.

Finding kindness, that tough old wind has sent
Halldora's lullaby across the open ocean,
  over wide blue skies, and onto this snowy prairie
where I hear it and cradle it softly, and so gently, to my heart.

A blackbird’s flight through endless night
I gaze through window panes of light
  At places I have never seen
  Beyond my primal tidal dream

  To sail the ship of light untouched
   To feel it’s beauty in the rough
    An uncut diamond unretouched
    That out survives forever
                    
    I walk my trail beside the dawn
     To know the joy of what is gone
     With the feeling that before to long
      I’ll find the place I know in song

      A blackbirds flight through endless night
      I gaze through window panes of light
     At places I have never seen
     Beyond my primal tidal dream

      To sail the ship of light untouched
       To feel it’s beauty in the rough
       An uncut diamond unretouched
       That out survives forever

Moon smiles sweetly as she rises in the East,
Orion slips sleepily into the West.

With so much tragedy all around us,
how blessed to find peace now
here, above us.

Lay still, and dream awhile, of orchids in moonlight
neath stars on a hill, taste the juice of elderberries,
fermenting as it spills, though not one thought alone
with a boy who knows no limits, and hands as cold
as stones, once tossed across the river with intent of
breaking bones, the dust crushed into powder then
stuffed into his nose, as he hands you all his misery
he claims to hold a rose, but your heart has known
wisdom in spite of growing old, you have learned  
to keep soft petals from the cold, while in deep starlit
scenes, you imagine thriving forests alive in shades of
green, but remember long before this, when it had all
just been a dream

Two birds had fallen from a tree
when a question dawned on me
would mercy say return them home
or did mercy set them free