JUST AS I WALKED
WITH THE VIKINGS
Along the slag heap, they put the ships.
Tied with poles to rocks and timber,
nothing so much as short to go. And
the lengths of chain, it seemed, went
on forever. A few men, horrid and
very sick, were simply put to death -
a mallet, a hammer, a hatchet.
-
Each time we entered some newly-found
place it was as if never before. Of course,
or off-course for that matter. We ended
up where we ended up. The scallions
of the north, places of today's maps -
Maine, Newfoundland - were for us
but empty expanses of discovered
land. We knew nothing, caring less.
-
Bone meal and chatter, raw meat, the cloven
hoof, the highland cat. A naturalist's ledger
would have all these things listed - we did
none of that. We just went on; wordless
and without a history of our own.
Or of what we were doing either.
Nothing and neither known.
WITH THE VIKINGS
Along the slag heap, they put the ships.
Tied with poles to rocks and timber,
nothing so much as short to go. And
the lengths of chain, it seemed, went
on forever. A few men, horrid and
very sick, were simply put to death -
a mallet, a hammer, a hatchet.
-
Each time we entered some newly-found
place it was as if never before. Of course,
or off-course for that matter. We ended
up where we ended up. The scallions
of the north, places of today's maps -
Maine, Newfoundland - were for us
but empty expanses of discovered
land. We knew nothing, caring less.
-
Bone meal and chatter, raw meat, the cloven
hoof, the highland cat. A naturalist's ledger
would have all these things listed - we did
none of that. We just went on; wordless
and without a history of our own.
Or of what we were doing either.
Nothing and neither known.
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