Farm Under The Sand

Always a pagan
though his lass was Christian

along island's grassy southwestern coast
in a fjord-indented
ribbon between
the glaciers and the sea

dig through the permafrost
remove windblown glacial sand
fills the rooms,
fragments of looms and cloth.
an iron knife, whetstones,
soapstone vessels, a double-edged comb

dairy and sheep farms,
churches, a monastery,
a nunnery, and a cathedral
with an imported bronze bell
and greenish tinted glass windows

His farm, was called Steep Slope

remains of a church,
surrounded by a turf wall
to keep farm animals out,
a great hall where
they cooked in fire pits, ate meals,
recited sagas, played board games.

Farm Under The Sand

Behind the church ruins of a cow barn,
with partitions between the stalls still in place,
one of them
the shoulder blade of a whale
practicality in a treeless land

three skeletons interred close to the church wall, beneath
where the eaves would have been.
Him, his son, his wife

dairy and sheep farms,
churches, a monastery,
a nunnery, and a cathedral
with an imported bronze bell
and greenish tinted glass windows

Whoever lived here departed so hurriedly
that they left behind iron and caribou antler arrows