Earthly Paradise - An Archeological Study

Slats for split cod, salt fish sun dry, flakes set in sod, wood once waist high, longers not yet drifted; a long discarded trail that sparkles of fish scale red netting half lifted, Silverweed, red on rocks fleur de lis, piss a beds massam grass, tuck and stock yellow-green, blue and reds, entwine the now straight once gnarled spruce bound by hands in the blowin’ cold by these knots tales are told Of gnarled fingers that once were true. Tendrils stun in the sun's hesitation With scent of fish faint in the fiber. The spiraling soon-to-be vegetation Is not wet with rot and oils but drier, weather treated with knit mesh still intact; the lines nish in the wood leave for a time understood what no man witness will. L'Anse aux Meadows, the tale is told. “Polar Bear Kills Two Lambs Newborn” destroyed their fold one April morn. The stiffly tossed salads of Boreal chill lack all chlorophyll. Cut of peat moss recent released ground of fences, the plotted peas gone to grasses, Are sheep's feed, were there any. Beyond the ocean swell lingers a rotting smell of outhouses emptied. St Brendan's paradise flaps fresh on the clothes wire whose weather worn wooden ties are hence antiques of arctic fire. Though nails be gone to rust, man's stage still a standard With gumpheads for steward Is straight in wait dawn to dusk, L‘Anse aux Meadows: In Cod We Trust some lost oracle's engraved creed beneath a helter skelter cross. Within this temple of man's greed, below rafters of bottled buoys, concrete, ropes in tangled greens and blues dangle in wait of a noose above platforms of senseless graffiti. coral white bones, the half-disintegrated form of a mother's superstitions. Born by what storms what distant equinox is this wood the grim reminder? Seasick hands lost in a liner sunk in sand beneath the rocks. A wealth of fish as if harry and skerry repent what was done. No one to net their caplin share of silver by the bucket now shimmering once teaming shadows born in the swell. Grey sponge of fish eggs ply the cans, the jugs, broken buoy mounds of mussel and shotgun shell, L'Anse aux Meadows. Icebergs in July. Viking huts were once a mound for a King-of-the-Hill girl or boy. outpost abandoned, no longer bound for familiar grounds to drag conches while cod forbidden flank the line. Nose overboard and paws in twine, a Newfoundland dog watches. At the Viking museum laughing for the camera, In footage you see them the once-living, together they give a show, heads bent, turning fish, side by each arms crossing as they reach, A village of women and men. A sacrifice landed, gunnels on gray gravel hulls of granite sanded wielded once for travel; wide bottom boats display decay far from the bay. Exposed in rows, lent to the sea are here returned, borrower free, remains to be burned on shore wave-crashed, rock-slashed no more. Written March 25th, 2002 © on Mar 25 2002 04:21 AM PST   0 • 1