The Cemetery
We settled here, scarcely believing our fortune,
no more to scull the seas. The island was safe but
there were many deaths: driven by the darkness
men killed their kin; others drowned in shallow water
before they could reach the sea. The island was safe but
there was no earth to cultivate, nowhere to bury those men
killed by their kin. Bodies float in shallow water.
Corpses were left to rot, covered in rocks to hinder beasts:
there was no earth to hold them. Where could we hide the dead
when mad men were buried alive on the highest rock?
We left them there to die, smothered with stones to keep them still;
the winter was their warder. Snow blew over the bones
of young men buried alive on the highest rock.
The ice on those cairns was as good as a key in a lock:
the winter, their warder. Wind blew between the stones
and if sometimes it sounded like a man crying to be free
the ice on each cairn was as good as a key in a lock.
And so we settled, scarcely believing our fortune,
although it might sound as if we were crying to be free,
crying for death to deliver us from darkness.
*Nancy Campbell's latest book is How to say 'I love you' in Greenlandic: An Arctic alphabet. Nancy was writer in residence at Upernavik Museum, Greenland in 2010.
