Iceland: Poems by K.L. Barron After Photography by Shawnee Barron

Skógafoss, Rangárþing Eystra, Southern Region, Iceland, by Shawnee Barron (USA) 2022

Walking the Sky
 
Without colour
the volume is texture
our held breath
opens time,
place lets us in
to ourselves
relationships
hurtling like ribbons of water
over motionless stone
emotionless clouds,
the full spectrum
between carved dark and sifted light
Linger in the spray,
rise up, and walk the sky
 

Vik í Mýrdal, Iceland, by Shawnee Barron (USA) 2022

 
Surfacing
 
Voices without sound 
call invisible birds
who land on our fingers
tipping us, horizontal
to vertical
vertigo
our crumbling fragments
surface 
stunning our bodies
weightless bubbles 
volcanic ash
our remembered skin

Sóheimajökull, Iceland, by Shawnee Barron (USA) 2022

​Deep 
 
inside the needle scratch of static
ice
a pool of calm turquoise 
balm to
knots of emotions
tangled from our tides
rushing in, then out 
mingling our particles, our ashes 
The brain can never restore 
before, 
just numb us
until we can stand
to thaw
 

Höfn Hornafiröi, Iceland, by Shawnee Barron (USA) 2022

Bloodless Diamonds 
 
Jagged and glacial
choked up from the sea,
dissonant chords
of glimmering
displaced bodies
frozen clouds 
scattered on the ash of emergency
black ice drowning
the moon’s hands falling off and off
 

Höfn i Hornafiröi, Iceland, by Shawnee Barron (USA) 2022

Blues
 
The sky pales
to you, 
favorite
glacial washed
jeans
worn to water,
your body
frozen fog
a sculpted numb 
unmoored
floating
the slow blue path
of light
 
K.L. Barron

K.L. Barron is a writer of place: poetry and prose. Her prize-winning fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction has been published in New Letters, The Bennington Review, terrain.org, ChickenBones (Library of Congress), among others, and in several anthologies.  Her debut novel recently came out from Sea Crow Press. She lives and writes in the Flint Hills.

​Shawnee Barron has loved photography since she developed her first photograph in the darkroom at the age of seven.  Not wanting to ever lose the love for the art, she completely stepped away from her business of portrait photography. She has always had a special place in her heart for landscapes, street, and fine art photography.  This project re-ignited that flame.