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On Oct 12, 2005, at 16:56, Joanna Boulter wrote: > This is fantastic -- in the full sense of the word! I can't wait to go > there! > > joanna It is pretty amazing -- it's been 10 years since I visited there but I still get flashbacks. Not only is it the spot where the continents drift apart, it also happens to be where the Vikings held their old parliamentary gathering (Thing). Apparently they used the site for several centuries until during one Thing the land dropped a meter more or less literaly beneath their feet. While admiring the continental ridge of North America I also saw an acquaintance from London walk by (I lived in Oslo at the time), but didn't manage to get her attention. People see each other in the stranget places. --Knut > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Knut Mork Skagen" > <[log in to unmask]> > To: <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 3:08 PM > Subject: snap > > >> Iceland >> (you have to love a poem >> that starts with "Iceland" >> rarely has a nation's name >> been such a poem to itself >> except perhaps "Greenland" >> situated so conveniently next door >> and with such radically different landscape >> and also "Zimbabwe") >> Iceland >> spreads like soft cheese >> east coast ever eastwards >> west coast ever westwards >> creating an in between place >> where >> the land cracks, no, really, >> it does, long thick black streaks, >> the running mascara of the >> earth's crust, some of them >> steaming even -- you can't help but think >> "what if my foot" >> "my toes could just" >> like being five years old again >> trying to get off the escalator. >> (Greenland has cracks, too; in the ice; >> beautiful and blue; but not steaming, yet.) >> On either side of this plain >> there are cliffs: Europe rises >> to the east. America to the west. >> The rock faces of continents, >> fresh-exposed. Oh (yes, "oh"!), >> to build a home on this nameless space >> between nations, to cook food >> and draw heat from its secret bowls >> of fire, and then, after sundown, >> after sundown...hell, >> I don't know. Maybe find a place >> with less ice in it. >> >> -- Trondheim, 12.10.05 >