L’Anse aux Meadows

There is a 

feeling of emptiness

where people have walked

and are gone. 

Where Medea’s cove 

circles

it has been one thousand years

since the Norse

traveled to Vinland

repaired their ships

and hunted

wolf, fox and bear

whale and walrus.

In the forge

they worked iron 

knitted with needles

of bone

women and men, together

wove fabric and built

or rebuilt in wood

but today the forests

have dwindled

and only the grassland

is left.

Where the earth

meets the sea

the solitary exaltation of the land

rises

and icebergs rest in the beyond

like close companions. 

After leaving this place

no saga speaks

to the arc they followed

where the river flows southward

in the land of the skræling.

Photo from color by Colin Young/Dreamstime

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lanse-aux-meadows