I've just returned from a week's trip to Iceland, one of the many highlights of which was giving a talk at the University of Reykjavik (in both English and Icelandic). I also wrote a poem while I was there about the happiness I find being in Iceland:
Yesterday I went to Gullfoss
Appeared a rainbow there
I stepped on it by mistake
And climbed into the sky
Looking down I could see
The light-swept land
Wet moss and gleaming stones
Bathed in warm and rippling air
I saw my friends, like angels
Disappear into the shining spray
Wearing the waterfall
Close against their skin, against their hearts
Elsewhere I saw rivers, their floors coated
With travellers’ silvered hopes
Flung below like falling stars
Into the streaming darkness
In the distance I could see
Turrets of steam
Pulling at the horizon
And in the towns and cities
I watched people talking among themselves
Stitching their breath
With soft and coloured words
In a harbour “Sólfarið”,
A sunfaring man
With outstretched arms
Hugs time
Remembering the tide-washed dreams of men
Born and those still yet to be
