Griffin Carved in Walrus Ivory Poem by Andrew Duncan

Frozen splash
Held shear of knife
Flesh-riving spray
White tear
Fretted grinder of spine and salt sea spray.

In the dim ocean the walrus is a spark of heat,
Plunging in the darkness behind the sunset.
The toppling cliffs of water close above its eyes.
In the North and sun-fall of the Ocean,
The wanderer is dashed
Between the freezing finials of the World-Snake himself,
Where the white water chilled by his viscera swirls,
Issuing from the river of death and darkness.
The main pours through the freezing basins of the world
Like masses of chilled blood through a grieving heart.
You go to some Atlantic island to calve; Hesperides of gale and rock
Where, striving Spring seeds, you find the fertile air.

Kernel
Living stone concerted of blood and nerve
In your core-skull is carved the winged lion
Who clutches in Scythia with frozen claws
The crop of winter: gold,
Fruit of Decembers where light died of chill
To vein the Finnic tundra with scoriac sun-glacier.
There, Scyths work the gold on pommels and chariots,
The snow falling on their forges hisses rarely