No doubt impatient with the bravura
of his bandit forebears, it took Arnason
three years of fortified headlands to win
this spot from a dozen jittery ascetics.
His sagacity shows still in the square
concrete homes lumped for no-nonsense with the Arctic's
muscle, and in the town's repute as venue
for chess celebrities and potentates
manoeuvring detente. The airport and hotels
have changed nothing. Thirty miles south of here
the Atlantic Rift crosses the coast and arcs
its one animus inland, its canals
take the island without fuss, bulge, divide it
cautiously, a millimetre a year.