Island Artist

by Daniel Rye

Papa Preacher they call him, though
he’s long since discarded God
to simplify, berthed in an old boathouse,
off-grid and not bothered.

He dreams of a narwhal tusk,
a spiralled spear,
lathed on the flow from Greenland.

Up at daybreak, he treads gingerly 
over slime-wracked basalt, plunges
up to his bearded Plimsoll line, retreats,
steaming to heart-pounding coffee.

He dreams of a whale jawbone,
chiselled from its stinking carcass,
at prayer on the holm at Kirkjubøur.

He takes the bus to town to sell his wares:
driftwood inlaid with detritus 
— seaglass, porcelain, bone —
artisanal gravegoods, traded for cash.

He dreams of a gannet’s skull,
sanded on the stacks at Mykines,
its beak honed to daggerpoint.

Back at the nest, he brews a stew, gazes
at his restored boat, then hauls
to the fjord’s edge, strakes
not yet swollen and sealed.

He dreams of an iceberg,
carved and calved from its Arctic mother,
merging with the midsummer sea.

The vessel hatches with a satisfied sigh,
oars withdrawn, all ambition thwarted.
He curls down, lapped asleep, and drifts
like a hermit crab, homebound.