Vinland

My father killed a man in Norway
They sent him west
I was born on the land they sent him to

The hillside came down on Valthjof's farm
And it was my men holding the spade
And Eyiolf came and took their lives
And I took his the same day

That is the arithmetic of here
That is how it always goes
One man's blood for another man's blood
On Icelandic snow

And they do not hang you
And they do not take your hand
They say a word instead
And the word is: go

Banished! - for the thing I did
Banished! - for the thing they made me do
Every island in the west
Is a smaller room than the last
Blood on Icelandic snow
Blood and a boat and a name
Send me out and send me out
Until there's nowhere left to send

I lent my high-seat pillars out
The carved ones, from my father's hall
Thorgest kept them for his own
So I went and took them back

Two of his sons went down that day
And the Thing was called at Thorsnes
And they weighed it out in silver
And they weighed it out in years

Three winters gone
Three winters out of sight
And nowhere in the world
That is not someone else's

Banished! - for the thing I did
Banished! - for the thing they made me do
Every island in the west
Is a smaller room than the last
Blood on Icelandic snow
Blood and a boat and a name
Send me out and send me out
Until there's nowhere left to send

There is a man in the north
Who says he saw land
Not an island. Land
Cliffs and white on top of them
Three days out, and he turned back
Because he was afraid

I am not afraid
I have nothing to be afraid with

So load the sheep and load the wood
Load the men who'll come along
Load the ones with nothing here
And nothing waiting home

Banished! - and I'll take it
Banished! - and I'll take it west
Every door that closes here
Opens on the open sea
Blood on Icelandic snow
Let it freeze and let it stay
They have sent me out for the last time
I am not coming back

Three years
That was the sentence
I was gone for the rest of my life

Gunnbjörn saw it once
He never went
Nobody went

Out from Snæfellsnes at first light
With the men who had no reason to stay
And the last of Iceland went under the rim
And nothing came up in its place

Four days of grey and nothing else
No bird, no rock, no shore
And then a white line on the world
Where there was not one before

And I put the boat in
And I put my feet down
And I called out once
And nothing called back

Three years west! - and no one here
Three years west! - and no one's name
Every fjord I put a mark on
Never had a mark before
This is not a conquest
There is nobody to take it from
Three years west of everything
And the silence does not end

There are stones stacked in the coves
Laid by hands that are not ours
And bits of boat gone green with age
And whoever made them, gone

So somebody was here before
And somebody did not stay
And I do not let the men speak of it
And I think of it every day

I named a fjord after myself
There was no one there to argue
I named an island and a headland
And a bay with good grass on it

In Iceland a man fights his whole life
For a strip of rock and dies for it
Here I say a word out loud
And the thing is mine

And it means nothing at all
And it means every single thing
And there is no one on this coast
To tell

Three winters is a sentence
But three winters is a map
And a map is worth more than the land
To the men who have no land

Three years west! - and now I turn
Three years west! - and now I sail
Not to stay and not to answer
Not to kneel at any Thing
I am going back for people
I am going back to sell
Three years west of everything
And I am the only one who knows

They gave me three years to disappear
I used them to find somewhere to put everyone else

Come here. Come here and listen
I have been somewhere

You are farming rock and you know it
You are third son of a third son
There is no field left in this country
That some grandfather did not win

And I have stood in a valley there
Where the grass came to my knee
And the sea was thick with seal and cod
And there was nobody

What do you call a place like that?
What do you call it if you want them to come?

Greenland! - say it out loud
Greenland! - and watch them lean in
Nobody sails to a rock
Nobody sails to a cold grey stone
Give the thing a better name
And the ships will fill themselves
It is not a lie if there is grass
It is not a lie if I believe it too

Twenty-five keels on the water
Twenty-five and every one full
Cattle lashed and children stowed
And the timber for their halls

And the wind came round the second week
And the sea got up and stayed
And I could not see the ships behind
And I did not slow down

Fourteen

I counted them into the fjord myself
Fourteen sails

Eleven went somewhere else
Some turned back. Some did not
Nobody knows which were which
And nobody ever will

I named a country to fill those boats
It worked
It worked exactly as well as I wanted it to

So we built the eastern settlement
And we built the western too
And every stone we set in place
Was set by fourteen crews

Greenland - say it out loud
Greenland - and mean it now
Because there are people living here
Who came because I said a word
Give the thing a better name
And the ships will fill themselves
And some of them arrive
And some of them do not

It is green. In the summer. In the south. In places
I did not lie
I chose which part to say

Hé!
Hé!
Together - now -

Pull for the man who has no field

Hé!

Pull for the son who has no name

Hé!

Pull for the girl asleep below

Hé!

Pull, and pull the same

Row! - the sea does not forgive a broken stroke
Row! - the sea does not care who you are
One oar out of time and we go over
So put your back in it and sing
Row! Row! Row!

Four days out and four days more

Hé!

Nothing east and nothing west

Hé!

Do not ask what's underneath

Hé!

Do not ask, just pull

Row! - the sea does not forgive a broken stroke
Row! - the sea does not care who you are
One oar out of time and we go over
So put your back in it and sing
Row! Row! Row!

Eleven ships behind us this morning
Nine ships behind us now

Do not turn your head
Do not count
Keep the stroke
Keep the stroke
Keep the stroke

Pull for the ones we cannot see

Hé!

Pull for the ones who fell behind

Hé!

They are pulling too, somewhere

Hé!

So pull, and pull the same

Row! - the sea does not forgive a broken stroke
Row! - the sea does not care who you are
One oar out of time and we go over
So put your back in it and sing
Row! Row! Row!
Row!

Land
...Land!
Stop rowing
Stop rowing - you can stop -

I was going to my father's house
That was all I was doing

There was no chart for where we went
And no man aboard had been
And the fog came down on the second day
And stayed for nine or ten

And when it lifted there was land
Green and low and full of trees
And every man aboard said: put in
And I said: that is not the place

Because my father is not there
Because it isn't what they said
Because I told him I would come
And Yule is coming on

And I turned the sail away from it
And I did not go ashore
Three times a country came to me
And I did not go ashore
There was a forest on the first
And a flatness on the next
And white on top of the third
And I named none of them

The men stood at the rail and looked
And nobody spoke to me
And that night I heard them talking low
And they stopped when I came near

They wanted wood. That's fair enough
We were low and it was there
And I said no. And they obeyed
And they never forgave it

Years after, in the king's own hall
A man asked me to tell it
So I told it, all the way through
And when I finished nobody spoke

And then somebody said
You saw it. And you did not walk on it

And I said: I found my father
He was alive. We kept Yule
He died the following winter
And the man looked at me

Like I had not answered him
And maybe I had not

So Leif bought my ship from me
And went and did it right
And they will put his name on it
And that is how it should be

I turned the sail away from it
And I did not go ashore
Three times a country came to me
And I did not go ashore
Somebody had to see it first
Somebody had to say
There is something in the west
And then let it be

I know what I saw
I have always known what I saw
I just wanted to get home

He saw three lands and named none of them
So I bought his ship
Not a ship like it. His

Thirty-five men and a borrowed keel
And a story told secondhand
And I asked my father to lead us out
Because it is his to lead

And he said: I am old now, Leif
And I said: come anyway
And he came - he came as far as the road
And the horse went down in the mud

He lay there and he looked at me
And he said: that is the answer
I was not meant to find more land
Than the land I have already found

So I go without him!
North first and then the sail comes round
Everything that Bjarni saw
I am going to put my feet on
Helluland - I name you
Markland - I name you
Not because it sells
But because I stood on you

The first was stone from sea to sky
No grass on it at all
Glaciers standing up behind
Like a wall behind a wall

The second had a white sand shore
And forest going back forever
And we took the wood we needed there
And we did not stay

And the third came up on the second day
Low and green and quiet
And there was dew on the grass at dawn
And the men bent down and tasted it

So I go without him!
North first and then the sail comes round
Everything that Bjarni saw
I am going to put my feet on
Helluland - I name you
Markland - I name you
Not because it sells
But because I stood on you

There is salmon in the river
Bigger than any we have seen
The cattle will not need shelter here -
There is no frost in winter
The grass does not die

And Tyrkir went missing for half a day
And came back drunk and laughing
With his hands full of something purple
And he could not stop talking in German

Grapes
There are grapes here

So we cut the timber and we built the houses
And we made the fires and stayed
And there is a word for a place like this
And I have been saving it

I went without him!
And I would go again tomorrow
Everything that Bjarni saw
I have put my feet on all of it
Helluland - behind me
Markland - behind me
And this one - this one -
Vinland. I name you Vinland

My father named a country to fill his ships
I named this one because I was standing on it
Those are different things
He would say they are not

The others came to look
We came with the cows

Sixty souls and all the beasts
And every tool we own
This is not an expedition
This is people moving home

I have buried two husbands in two countries
I have starved through one whole winter
And I did not come this far again
To stand and look at it

So mark the corners in the grass
So put the posts in while it's light

Landfall - not the seeing of it
Landfall - the staying of it
Anyone can find a country
It takes a herd to make it real
Cut the turf and lay the walls
Put the smoke up in the sky
It is not a land until
Somebody is born in it

The winter came and did not bite
There was grass in January
And the cattle stood out all night long
And I did not believe it

And in the second year I knew
And I did not tell him for a while
Because I have carried before
And I have come home empty

Are you sure?

I am sure

It is a long way from anyone who knows how

It is a long way from anyone at all

...Then we do it here

Then we do it here

He came in the third autumn
With the leaves going gold on the water
And they put him in my arms
And he was the first

Landfall - this is what it means

Landfall - this is what it costs

Snorri - son of this ground

Snorri - son of nowhere else

Cut the turf and lay the walls

Put the smoke up in the sky

It is a country now

Somebody was born in it

That was the third autumn
In the spring, the boats came down the coast
And there were a great many of them
And they were not ours

They came out of the trees the first time
Holding furs up over their heads
That is a peaceful thing to do
We did not know that yet

Nine canoes and then nineteen
And they wanted what we had
And Karlsefni said: no iron, no blade
Give them milk and give them red

And it worked - for a season it worked
Furs for cloth and cloth for furs
And nobody was killed at all
And we thought that it would hold

Then the bull got out
Then the bull got out and roared
And they had never heard a thing like that
In the history of this coast

They ran! - and we laughed about it
They ran! - and we should not have laughed
Because they went back to the trees
And the trees go back forever
We are sixty on a shore
They are a country we cannot see
Count us. Count them
That is the whole story

They came back when the leaves were down
In a line and not by chance
Poles above them turning black
And nobody held up a fur

Thorbrand Snorrason went down first
With a stone axe in his skull
And he was standing next to me
And then he was on the ground

We had iron. They did not
It did not matter

There is a number past which iron stops counting
And we found it in an afternoon

They were not savages
They were not devils
They were people whose land it was
And there were enough of them
And we could not speak one word to them
Not one word
And that is how it went

Nearer
Nearer
The line comes through the trees
Nearer
They are on the field
They are on the field with us

Back to the river!
Back to the rock!
Nobody hold the line
There is no line
Run

We ran! - and there is nothing funny in it
We ran! - the way they ran from us
Everything we came to build
Is sixty people on a shore
Count us. Count them
Count it one more time
This was never going to be ours
We just took a long time to hear it

Karlsefni said we would come back in the spring
With more men
Nobody said anything
Nobody believed him
Not even him

Look at them
Look at them running

Sixty men with iron on
And they turn like a field of wheat
And I am standing in the door
With a child inside of me

Wait, I said. And nobody waited
Turn, I said. And nobody turned
And I went out after them myself
And the weight of him slowed me down

So I am the one who stays
Not because I am brave
Because I cannot run
And I will not kneel

You call yourselves men?
You had swords and you had walls
And you went like cattle through a gate
That you built yourselves
Give me one blade - one -
And I will do it better than the lot of you
I am carrying a child
And I am still the last one here

Thorbrand lay there in the grass
With his skull opened up
And his sword was underneath his hand
So I took it. He was done with it

And they came on across the field
And there were more than I could count
And I did not have a shield
And I did not have a plan

So I did the only thing
That was mine to do

I pulled the dress down off my shoulder
I put my breast bare in the cold
And I struck the flat of the sword against it

Not for them
For me
So I would know I was still standing

And they stopped
Every one of them stopped

I do not know what they saw
I know what I was

And they went backward to the boats
And they did not come again
And my brother's men came out of the trees
When it was safe

You call yourselves men?
Do not tell this in the hall
Or if you tell it, tell it true -
Tell them who was left
I did not have a blade
Until I took it off the dead
I was carrying a child
And I was the only one who stayed

They wrote it down
They wrote that the Skrælings fled
They did not write why

We were there for three winters
The sea has been there for all of them

We put the boats out one last time
With the cattle and the child
And nobody said the word forever
And everybody knew

I have crossed this water more than most
I will cross it once again
And I will die on a farm in Iceland
A long way from all of it

Let the grass come up through the doorway
Let the turf fall in on the hearth

The sea takes it back
The way it takes everything back
Not angry and not cruel
Just slow, and never stopping
We were sixty on a coast
Against a country and the cold
The sea takes it back
And it does not remember us

Greenland held on longer
Four hundred years of holding
And the last thing anyone wrote down
Was two people getting married

And then the ships stopped coming
And the ice came further south
And nobody wrote the ending
Because there was nobody left

Did we do anything?

We did it

Nobody knew

We still did it

They will say it never happened

For a while. Yes

And then?

And then somebody will dig

Eight houses in the turf
A forge and a spindle whorl
On a headland in the north
Where the sagas always said

Nineteen sixty. Someone looked
Someone actually looked
And the ground gave it up
Exactly as it was told

The sea takes it back

But the ground keeps what it's given

Not angry and not cruel

Just slow, and never stopping

We were sixty on a coast

And the coast is still there

The sea takes it back

And somebody remembers anyway

Snorri grew up in Iceland
He never saw it again
He told his children
They told theirs
That is how it survived