Distance, time, movement and place from a ‘there-and-back’ route, walked at dawn and dusk into the remote, coastal, Icelandic lava field of Búðahraun.

Búðahraun
I start at the back of the wooden church. In the evening light, a family wanders the graveyard but at dawn I am alone. Along the narrow path the back-of-the-beach grass transitions into the ridges, fissures and clefts of the Búðahraun lava field. Marram grass yields to rock – lichen crusted, rounded with moss – a surface razed of vegetation of any meaningful height.

from across black lava
I hear fluty chatter,
song of redwings.

I step, stride, walk the path
to the solstice turn
dusk to dawn, dawn to dusk