By way of a trip report

[larryhammer]

For whatever reason, sometimes I journal my vacations in verse. Perhaps because Iceland is by way of cliché a land of contrasts, this time it was in that Japanese form of contrasts, a renga. Each stanza forms a complete 5-line tanka with the one before and the one after it -- or that's the theory. All but arrival and departure behind the courtesy cut.

Black rock beneath green
under a wet low gray sky:
Iceland welcomes you.

Arriving at 6 a.m.
It's hard to appreciate.

The youth hostel lounge
is warm, clean, quiet, friendly,
comfy, seductive.

The open road beckons us:
open heath, wide lake, clear sky.

Camping goes better
when your new fuel canister
fits onto your stove.

Now on the hotel menu:
fresh lake trout, caught this morning.

Tern hovers over
the wind-ruffled lake waters --
dives -- splashes -- away.

High above, the swooping snipe
buzzes loudly for his mate.

Tourists at Law Rock
listen to the tour-guide drone
with blank faces.

Get off the Golden Circle
and guides have fewer answers.

As in many lands,
Icelandic tourism runs
on bored teenagers.

A blonde takes our admission --
the turf house is ours alone.

Once, nine hundred years
ago, Glaukur lived at Stöng
in a home like this.

Lovely is the green hillside
where Gunnar rests and sheep graze.

Birds squabble above
the fields of dandelions
where Bergthorshvoll burned.

Above the place Njal's ashes
rest, you can see new Surtsey.

A hostel window,
surrounded by travel guides,
watches a glacier.

Another hostel's back deck
looks across the gray Broad Fjord.

Above the harbor
looking down from Helgafell
Thor's power sleeps still.

The hills of the shore behind
are hazed in the ferry's smoke.

Into the Westfjords --
the high road over the heath,
open sky, potholes.

Bump thunk, buda-buda-clunk.
Good thing this is a rental.

80 bucks a tank?
Iceland sticker shock -- again.
Let's stay put today.

Iceland Independence Day:
Speeches, songs, music, drinking.

Teenaged clowns joking
in a language you don't know:
that's surrealism.

"Play that funky music, white boy,"
Belts the Nordic disco queen.

It's time to escape --
even if we have to drive
up and down each fjord.

Good: Strandir has fewer fjords,
more sorcery museums.

Better: a curator
comes out to us in costume
to tour his annex.

Best: a French emigre chef
creates Icelandic cuisine.

Think of that food when
the sorcerer cloaks his hills
with mist and mischief.

Think of that sorcerer's hut
in Red Eirik's clean, high hall.

Smell Eirik's hearthsmoke,
the sorcerer's turf-house must --
both missing from Stöng.

On the fresh-cut campground grass,
our tent is redolent green.

RVs, squealing kids,
quiet hours from 1 to 9:
a local resort.

Crowded field, stadium shouts:
Reykjavik city campground.

Midsummer evening,
sprawled reading on the cool grass
in the midnight sun.

Don't like the weather? Just wait:
In five minutes, it'll change.

So what, then, is this
continuing clear blue sky?
Unnatural joy.

Your choice: stroll around downtown
or linger in a café.

Just lazing about
in a geothermal pool
sounds quite relaxing.

And when the weather turns shirty,
more so. Pity the pool closed.

The youth hostel lounge
is still warm and comforting
on a wet last night.

Lifting off into the clouds,
we leave mossed lava behind.

Requests for annotations appreciated -- it'll help me see what needs revising for clarity.

---L.

Comments

[larryhammer]

Thankee, and it is. Normally it's a collaborative form for more than two people, but seems to work for this purpose.

---L.

[azang.livejournal.com]

I liked reading about your trip in that form.
Sounds marvelous!

[larryhammer]

Thankee. It was.

---L.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Larry,

I love this. :) Totally awesome.

The poet in me only found one line to tweak, and that is optional : the wind-ruffled lake waters

If it was mine, I'd leave off 'the' and make it just 'wind-ruffled lake waters'.

You asked, or I'd never make the suggestion. *g*

[larryhammer]

I struggled with that line (many cross-outs) and am still unhappy with it. There's a couple others I'm ditto. Thanks for the suggestion.

---L.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Love it. So succinct and so vivid.

I gather you managed to get the stove to work? Or was it trout sushi?

[janni.livejournal.com]

It was trout cooked (and caught) by the nice hotel staff. :-)

We found the right fuel canister a couple towns later, and were able to cook on our own on camping-nights from there. (The hostels, helpfully, came already equipped with kitchens--except for the place with the French emigre chef, and we had no intention of doing any of our own cooking there. :-))

[http://users.livejournal.com/_twilight_/]

Fun poem. Mossed lava? Cooled, one would hope. ;)

[larryhammer]

Cool enough -- it was around 50 the morning we left.

---L.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Flea market vendors.
Want a sample? Minke whale.
No thanks. Not today.

[larryhammer]

How about the rotted shark?
That one I'll try. Just this once.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Glaukur lived at Stöng--I read that line as Glaukur the Strong!

900 years ago Glaukur the Strong lived here--was what I saw, and what a concept :-)

[larryhammer]

:P

Glaukur must have been somewhat strong, though -- there was a saga about him, which has been lost.

---L.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a great trip -

[larryhammer]

It was. One rainy day the whole two weeks -- and frequently clear and sunny as well. To the amazement of all the locals.

---L.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Your trip sounds like it was absolutely wonderful.

[larryhammer]

It was.

*looks at his in-box*

It was, indeed.

---L.

[palomapus.livejournal.com]

Lovely way to take this desert dweller along, even if after the fact. You guys must be feeling THIS is surreal after all that cool, glacier-filled blueness and greeness, while looking at our pale blue sky, brownish landscape and listening to our cicada circus orchestra playing non-stop!

[janni.livejournal.com]

Actually, after two weeks of being in the habit of observing the land--the desert feels like it's been brought into sharp relief, too, all its loveliness new once again. :-)

[larryhammer]

Actually, there wasn't much glacier this time -- that view of a tongue across the valley from the hostel was about it, aside from a couple glimpses. And for that matter, there was a LOT of brown (and black) landscape without much in the way of green.

The cicadas, though, have really struck me, even more than the temperatures.

---L.

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Hi Larry...

Just letting you know that the Pilgrim and I are currently in St George, UT. Haven't heard from you to date about our possible defic, so I'm assuming that either you're busy with parental obligations or otherwise no longer available. Thanks for the offer nonetheless, and hope you had a good time in Iceland! We'll probably be heading off today or tomorrow for the west coast instead.

See you!

Tabouli.

PS Will send you my cell phone number in a separate entry, which I'll delete straight afterward, just in case you want to get in touch today.

[larryhammer]

Ack. Yes, I've been swamped. I'm sorry to miss you!

---L.

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Is the swamp likely to extend through the next few days? If not, we could still conceivably meet up. The Pilgrim and I have decided to lurk at Long Valley Junction for a couple of days and see Bryce and the Big Ditch (flying out on the 7th), so if you're about, we could take a detour and meet somewhere...

[larryhammer]

Yeah, through next week at the least. :((((((

It doesn't help that it's beastly hot, too.

---L.